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SDartmoutfi College Confotnceg 

JFirst QLutk School Conference 

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 



SDartmoutfi College Conferences 

JFirst Suck School Conference 

ADDRESSES AND DISCUSSIONS 
AT THE CONFERENCE ON 
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
HELD OCTOBER 12.13. 14 
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ELEVEN 




THE AMOS TUCK SCHOOL OF 
ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE 
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
HANOVER, N.H., U.S.A. 
1912 



34 



COPYRIGHT, I912 
SV DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 



THE- PLIMPTON- PRESS 
[ W • D >o] 

NORWOOD.MASS-UiS'A 



.c r; a 30 988 7 



TO EDWARD TUCK 

FOUNDER OF THE AMOS TUCK SCHOOL 

OF ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE 

WHOSE DESIRE THAT THE SCHOOL 

SHOULD BE OF SERVICE TO THE STATE 

AND TO THE NATION INSPIRED 

THE CALLING OF THE CONFERENCE 

OF WHICH THIS VOLUME 

IS A RECORD 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

_Z HE AMOS TUCK SCHOOL desires to make acknowledg- 
ment of Us indebtedness to many persons not resident in Hanover for 
that generous cooperation which made possible the success of the 
conference: 

To His Excellency, Honorable Robert P. Bass, Governor of New 
Hampshire, and to Honorable Henry B. Quinby, ex-Governor of New 
Hampshire, in whose participation was expressed the interest and 
cooperation of the State of New Hampshire; 

To Frederick W. Taylor, Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia; Har- 
rington Emerson, of The Emerson Company, Consulting Engineers, 
New York; Henry L. Gantt, Consulting Engineer, New York; Fred- 
erick A. Cleveland, Chairman of The President's Commission on 
Economy and Efficiency, Washington, D. C; Henry P. Kendall, 
Manager of The Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass.; James M. Dodge, 
Chairman of the Board, The Link-Belt Company, Philadelphia; and 
many other speakers whose names the reader will find in these pro- 
ceedings, for the generous contributions which made the conference 
worthy of permanent record; 

To Charles H. Jones, President of The Commonwealth Shoe and 
Leather Company, Boston, Mass., and Benjamin A. Kimball, '54, 
President of The Mechanicks National Bank and President of the 
Concord and Montreal Railroad, Concord, N. H., representative of 
New England business men, chairmen of sessions of the conference; 

To Harry R. Wellman, 'oy, Assistant-Secretary of the Boston 
Chamber of Commerce, Boston, Mass.; Emmett Hay Naylor, 'oq, Sec- 
retary of the Springfield Board of Trade, Springfield, Mass.; Morton 
Hull, '09, Secretary of the Holyoke Board of Trade, Holyoke, Mass.; 

vij 



viii ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Ernest S. Gile, 'p5> publisher of " The Weekly Bulletin of Leather 
and Shoe News," Boston, Mass.; Ernest Martin Hopkins, 'oi, 
Employment Manager, William Filene's Sons Company, Boston, 
Mass.; and other alumni of Dartmouth College for effective 
cooperation; 

Particularly to Morris Llewellyn Cooke, Consulting Engineer, 
Philadelphia, since appointed Director of Public Works of Philadel- 
phia, of whose wise counsel and active help, sought by the School in 
every step of planning and performance, the conference and its record 
are a testimony. 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 3 

Harlow S. Person, Director, The Amos Tuck School, Dartmouth College 



THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 



INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN 

Honorable Henry B. Quinby, ex-Governor of New Hampshire 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME 

Ernest Fox Nichols, LL.D., President of Dartmouth College 

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT . 
Frederick W. Taylor, Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia 



19 



SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND THE LABORER 



INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN SO 

Benjamin A. Kimball, President of the Mechanicks National Bank, and 
President of the Concord and Montreal Railroad, Concord, N. H. 

THE TASK AND THE DAY'S WORK 60 

Henry L. Gantt, Consulting Engineer, New York 

THE OPPORTUNITY OF LABOR UNDER SCIENTIFIC MAN- 
AGEMENT 84 

Harrington Emerson, The Emerson Company, Consulting Engineers, 
New York 

ix 



x CONTENTS 

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND THE MANAGER 

INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN 109 

Charles H. Jones, President of The Commonwealth Shoe and Leather Co., 
Boston 

TYPES OF MANAGEMENT: UNSYSTEMATIZED, SYSTEMATIZED 

AND SCIENTIFIC 112 

Henry P. Kendall, Manager of The Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass. 

THE SPIRIT IN WHICH SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT SHOULD 

BE APPROACHED 142 

James M. Dodge, Chairman of the Board, The Link-Belt Co., Nicetown, 
Philadelphia 



jfourti) &z0&wn 



DISCUSSIONS OF THE APPLICABILITY OF SCIENTIFIC 
MANAGEMENT IN CERTAIN INDUSTRIES 

MACHINE MANUFACTURE 155 

Chairman, Henry K. Hathaway, Vice-President of The Tabor Mfg. Co., 
Philadelphia 

TEXTILE MANUFACTURE 175 

Chairman, Eugene Szepesi, Szepesi &* Parr, Textile Engineers, Boston 

SHOE MANUFACTURE 204 

Chairman, Charles H. Jones, President of The Commonwealth Shoe and 
Leather Co., Boston 

PRINTING AND PUBLISHING 239 

Chairman, Morris Llewellyn Cooke, Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia 

PULP AND PAPER MANUFACTURE 252 

Chairman, Miner Chipman, The Emerson Company, Consulting Engi- 
neers, New York 

LUMBERING AND THE MANAGEMENT OF TIMBER PROPERTIES 269 
Chairman, W. R. Brown, The Berlin Mills Co., Berlin, N. E. 

ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY 286 

Chairman, Edwin F. Gay, Dean of the Graduate School of Business 
Administration, Harvard University 



CONTENTS xi 

JFtfti) &t&#iim 

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNMENT 

INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN 313 

Honorable Robert P. Bass, Governor of New Hampshire 

THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT TO THE 

ACTIVITIES OF STATE AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT 313 
Frederick A. Cleveland, Chairman of The President's Commission on 
Economy and Efficiency 

PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 

INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN 339 

Morris Llewellyn Cooke, Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia 

SYMPOSIUM 339 

Henry K. Hathaway, Vice-President of The Tabor Manufacturing Co., 

Philadelphia 
Sanford E. Thompson, Consulting Engineer, Newton Highlands, Mass. 
Carl J. Barth, Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia 
Honorable William C. Redfield, Member of Congress 
Mrs. Frank B. Gilbreth 
Frank B. Gilbreth, Vice-President of the Society for Promoting 

Engineering Education 
Edward Robinson, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of 

Vermont 
Arthur Gordon Webster, Professor of Physics, Clark University 
Hollis Godfrey, West Medford, Mass. 
Frederick W. Taylor, Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia 



REGISTRATION AT THE CONFERENCE 379 



UnttoDuctton 

BY HARLOW S. PERSON 
Director of the Amos Tuck School, Dartmouth College 



SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 1 

HARLOW S. PERSON 

WHETHER Scientific Management is something new 
or is a new name for old principles and mechanism of 
organization and management is relatively unimpor- 
tant. What is important is that it has recently been given 
an extraordinary amount of attention in newspapers and in 
magazines, and that notwithstanding this large amount of 
exposition and discussion there seems to be no general under- 
standing of its nature and of its operation. Both its prin- 
ciples and its mechanism must be understood before further 
discussion can be really profitable. The purpose of this first 
Tuck School conference is to enable business men and manu- 
facturers of New Hampshire and of New England to meet 
the organizing engineers who have applied Scientific Man- 
agement and the manufacturers in whose plants it is in 
operation, in the hope that they may carry away from 
the conference an understanding of its principles and that 
they may form sound judgments concerning its applicability 
to their respective businesses. 

The fact that there are so many contradictory opinions 
concerning Scientific Management suggests that there must 
be in it something of a new philosophy of management, and 
that it must be worthy, for that reason if for no other, of 
serious investigation. Whether one considers it a new phi- 
losophy of management or whether one considers it a gather- 
ing together of the best of old devices of management, depends 
primarily upon whether one begins with an examination of 
the whole or with an examination of the parts. The aero- 

1 An address delivered before the Social Science Club and the Dartmouth 
Scientific Society, of Dartmouth College, and published in The Dartmouth, a 
student newspaper, preliminary to the conference. 

3 



4 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

plane furnishes an analogy. If the inventors of the aeroplane 
had brought its parts one at a time before the public and 
proclaimed each as something new, they would have been 
ridiculed. But when the perfected aeroplane was brought 
out and men actually flew, the Wrights were acknowledged 
great inventors. Old and familiar mechanical devices had 
been brought into a new relationship expressing a new ideal. 
In a like manner many writers and speakers have observed 
only the devices of Scientific Management and have pro- 
nounced them old and familiar. They have failed to see the 
whole and to appreciate the view that it is a union of many 
old devices with a few new ones in a relationship expressing 
a new ideal of business organization and management. 

Scientific Management is said to be a third stage in the 
development of organization. The first stage was represented 
by the non-systematized business, of which there are to be 
found survivals among older and smaller plants. In this stage 
the management grew up with the plant, was inbred, and was 
bound by traditions handed down from manager to manager. 
There were, of course, in the period of non-systematized busi- 
ness general improvement and brilliant examples of the de- 
velopment of new methods, but the period was one of high 
profits and of little incentive to improvement, and new 
methods came fortuitously and spread only by imitation. 

The second stage of organization is represented by the 
systematized business, characteristic of the last two decades. 
During the period following the Civil War, improvements in 
transportation destroyed isolated markets, brought more 
intense competition and reduced the margin between raw 
material cost and selling price. This situation compelled 
many managers, who might otherwise have remained bound 
by tradition, to seek by improved methods and organization 
a reduction of the costs of manufacturing processes. Chemis- 
try was called in to make salable products of what had been 
waste; blank forms of great variety were devised to keep 
account of materials and of labor that there might be no mis- 
application and waste of these; as units of business became 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 5 

larger, printed and written directions came to replace per- 
sonal oversight and instruction by the manager, and systems 
were devised to effect the smooth working of routine. Cost 
accounting, the sextant and compass of the business man, 
was more highly developed and more generally adopted and 
this required the systematization of processes. 

Systematized management is not Scientific Management, 
say the advocates of the latter. Under the former tradition 
remains dominant; improved methods are acquired by experi- 
ment, it is true, but not by the precise laboratory method of 
the observation and measurement of a large number of units; 
new methods become known by imitation rather than by 
teaching; and, the reduction of a cost once accomplished, it 
is common to accept the result as final, because the solution 
of an immediate problem, rather than as a step only towards 
greater improvement. 

The third stage in the development of organization and 
management, they say, is that of Scientific Management. 
Nor is it merely theory, they insist further. During a period 
of thirty years its principles have been in process of working 
out and, during a briefer period, of application. Plants 
employing an aggregate of 50,000 men have adopted the new 
methods. Witness after witness testified before the Inter- 
state Commerce Commission that he was connected with the 
management of plants employing these methods, and presented 
an impressive array of facts concerning its results, — greater 
productivity, greater profits, higher wages and reduced prices 
to the consumer. If Scientific Management be universally 
applicable in business organization and management it may 
truly be "the most important advance in industry since the 
introduction of the factory system and power machinery." 

Mr. Taylor insists that the general principles, or philosophy, 
of Scientific Management should not be confused with the 
mechanism, which is merely incidental. He emphasizes four 
fundamental principles. First: the method of Scientific 
Management is the method of a true science. The organiz- 
ing engineer "objectifies" a plant to be organized; he enters 



6 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

as an "outsider," bound by no traditions and prejudices of 
its management, holds it, so to speak, at arm's length, studies 
it by departments and as a whole, compares it with other 
similar plants of his experience and observes defects that the 
"insider" does not see. In this process the truly scientific 
method of analysis into units and experimental recombina- 
tion of them is followed; not superficially, but exhaustively, 
until enough data are collected from which trustworthy laws 
may be derived. There is one case of experimenting by Mr. 
Taylor in which nearly 50,000 experiments were carefully 
recorded, classified and studied, 800,000 pounds of steel and 
iron were cut up into chips, and nearly $200,000 were ex- 
pended. This observation is not confined to machinery and 
material only; it is applied also to men and, for illustration, 
laws of fatigue and recovery from fatigue are discovered. In 
accordance with laws thus derived, standards of productivity 
are established and the methods of their attainment set forth 
in rules. In this observation and experiment and in the deri- 
vation of laws there is no assumption of finality. The organ- 
izing engineer does not stop when a reduction in cost is 
effected; he assumes that there is always the probability of 
further important discovery of new laws, and observation and 
experiment do not cease. This attitude of mind and these 
methods, says Mr. Taylor, justify the claim that the new 
management is a science. 

A second general principle of Scientific Management is 
that there should be, and as a result of the laws derived 
by observation and experiment may be, a scientific selection 
of machines, material and workmen. For instance, by a 
careful study of each individual of a group of men in any 
department, it may be found that many are not physically 
or temperamentally adapted to performing the particular 
functions required in that department and that they are 
adapted to the performing of functions in some other de- 
partment. There follows a redistribution of men between 
departments with the result that, without an increase in 
aggregate energy expended, there is an increase in aggregate 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 7 

productivity. It is the scientific method of adapting instru- 
ment to purpose. 

The third principle of the new management is that, a work- 
man once discovered and assigned to the performance of the 
function to which he is adapted, the management should 
provide continuous instruction for him. From this point of 
view the factory should become a school ; the workman should 
be instructed how to use the most efficient method with the 
greatest skill. 

The fourth of Mr. Taylor's principles of Scientific Manage- 
ment is that there should be intimate cooperation between 
management and men and a redistribution of responsibilities. 
The workability of the new management, says Mr. Taylor, 
depends upon such sympathetic cooperation. There must be 
mutual recognition of the possibility of mutual helpfulness. 
This recognized, there must be a readjustment of duties, for 
under present systems of management there is required of a 
workman so much as to make impossible his highest efficiency. 
The manager, under the present system, requires of the work- 
man simply the accomplishment of a certain result. To the 
workman is left the determination of the method as well as 
the actual performance. Under Scientific Management the 
experts in the planning room determine the method and leave 
to the workman freedom to apply all his energy to actual 
performance. 

These four general principles constitute, according to Mr. 
Taylor, the philosophy of Scientific Management. The de- 
vices employed to give effect to these principles constitute the 
mechanism. The philosophy and any particular mechanism 
are not to be considered equally important. In Mr. Taylor's 
own words, "Scientific Management fundamentally consists 
of ... a certain philosophy which can be applied in many 
ways, and a description of what any man or men may believe 
to be the best mechanism for applying these general principles 
should in no way be confused with the principles themselves." 
But certain parts of the mechanism now advocated by the 
organizing engineers are of great importance because they 



8 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

seem to be necessary to the application of the principles and 
because one of them in particular is opposed by many em- 
ployees as competent, in their judgment, to produce indirect 
results harmful to their productive group. 

Scientific Management aims to produce at least five results, 
all of which must be produced before such management can 
be said to be established, and for their production specific 
devices must be employed. 

First, Industrial processes must be reduced to units before 
scientific observation and experiment are possible. The most 
important device for this purpose, the time-study, aims to 
reduce the operations of workmen to fundamental motions 
and to ascertain, for example, the shortest, longest and 
average time required for each motion. From experiment 
with these data a standard time for the performance of each 
operation is derived. 

Second, This standard time in which a given operation is 
to be performed having been ascertained, it must be set 
before the workman as something to strive for. To accom- 
plish this the device of the task, sometimes called standard 
time, is used. With each order which goes into the shop is 
advice concerning the average time which should be required 
to produce each unit of product and which represents the 
standard of efficiency. 

Third, The workman must be instructed how to achieve 
this standard. He must have at hand a sympathetic, expert 
director who is teacher rather than boss. The device of 
functional foremanship is intended to effect this. The func- 
tional foreman teaches all the workmen who have to perform 
a given function, e.g., set a tool in a lathe, exactly how to 
perform that and no other function. He is an expert workman 
become teacher. The foremanship of Scientific Management, 
therefore, requires in a given plant as many foremen as there 
are functions to be performed there. The foreman of the 
usual organization, on the other hand, is the boss of all the 
men in a given room with respect to all functions performed 
there. He may be expert in one or more of the functions, but 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT Q 

seldom all, and too frequently considers himself driver rather 
than teacher. This foremanship requires in a given plant as 
many bosses as there are departments. 

Fourth, Scientific Management aims to relieve the work- 
men of responsibility for determining how a process is to be 
performed, especially if the method is one which may be 
exactly, i.e., scientifically, determined, and to leave him free 
for the development of manual dexterity. This is accom- 
plished by the planning and routing room, a managerial depart- 
ment which works out and sends with each production order 
precise specifications for the operation. If it be an assembling 
job, for instance, the parts to be assembled, their relative 
positions around the workman at the beginning of the job, 
the order in which they should be brought together, etc., 
are specified. The workman does not need to plan; he 
proceeds at once to performance. 

Fifth, The workman must be inspired to accept the new 
methods; to strive to acquire dexterity in carrying out speci- 
fications sent him. Workmen, like managers, like any other 
large body of men, have fixed habits from which it is difficult 
to turn them. How inspire the workman to make the change? 
The result is accomplished by a differential wage system, a 
device which gives him at once, in a way perfectly obvious, a 
share of the increased productivity, instead of compelling him 
to wait for the slower, less obvious, redistribution of shares 
which would work out under the usual system of payment 
by the hour or day. These differential wage systems vary, 
although they are in principle the same, primarily according 
to the proportion of the increased productivity apportioned 
to the workman. One system gives the workman, say 30 
per cent, of the increased returns; another gives him prac- 
tically all. 

It is neither the philosophy nor the interesting mechanism 
of Scientific Management which has aroused such wide-spread 
interest; it is the story of its astonishing results. In Mr. 
Taylor's own words, workmen "are receiving from 30 per 
cent to 100 per cent higher wages daily than are paid 



10 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

to men of similar caliber with whom they are surrounded, 
while the companies employing them are more prosperous 
than ever before. In these companies the output, per man and 
per machine, has on an average been doubled. During all 
these years there has never been a single strike among the 
men working under this system. In place of the suspicious 
watchfulness and the more or less open warfare which charac- 
terize the ordinary types of management, there is universally 
friendly cooperation between the management and the men." 
Strong as it is, it must be said that on the whole the testi- 
mony of the executives of plants so managed corroborates 
this statement. 

Mr. Taylor's statement was made in January, 1910. Since 
that time there has appeared strong criticism of Scientific 
Management, especially by officers of labor unions. It is 
possible that the publicity given it by testimony before the 
Interstate Commerce Commission has caused these union 
officials to examine it more closely with reference to its 
possible influence on the future of labor and particularly of 
unionism. 

There have been nine principal criticisms of Scientific 
Management. Three are concerned with its effect on the 
individual workman, physically and temperamentally. The 
others are concerned with its influence on labor as a pro- 
ductive group. 

First, The taking of time-studies and the determination 
and setting of a task are a reflection upon the good faith of 
labor. It sets up the relationship of master and slave. This 
criticism is undoubtedly prompted by a sensitiveness which 
is aroused by too much emphasis, in expositions of Scientific 
Management, upon the treatment of labor. Most exposi- 
tions have been for the benefit of management, and have 
emphasized the handling of labor. In the application of 
Scientific Management, however, the managerial force is 
studied just as keenly and reorganized just as thoroughly as 
is the labor force. Each person concerned with the executive 
operations has a task and is held strictly accountable for its 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT II 

performance. In plants in which Scientific Management has 
been applied, and in such plants only, is labor enabled to 
judge of the efficiency of the executive force and to hold it 
up to established standards of efficiency. Scientific Manage- 
ment recognizes no difference, in determining standards of 
efficiency, between management, capital goods and labor. 

Second, The removal from the workman of individual respon- 
sibility for determining the method of an operation and leaving 
to him attention to the skilful performance only, makes his 
work uninteresting and monotonous and is bound to stunt 
him intellectually. My own observations and the observa- 
tions of others in plants where Scientific Management has 
been applied do not support this criticism. The first error 
in the criticism is the assumption that taking from the work- 
man the necessity of going after and selecting the proper kinds 
of material, tools, etc., — and that is one of the principal 
responsibilities of which the redistribution of duties deprives 
him — takes from him something intellectually stimulating. 
Another error is the assumption that performing an operation 
according to the best method is intellectually less stimulating 
than performing it according to an inefficient method. A 
third error is the assumption that a method handed down by 
tradition is intellectually more stimulating than a method 
derived by experiment. 

Third, The effect of Scientific Management is to "speed up " 
the workman, wear him out and cause him to be cast aside. 
Again, actual investigation in plants so organized does not 
support this criticism. Its error is the assumption that the 
increased productivity comes from a greater expenditure of 
muscular and nervous energy in a working day. The increased 
productivity comes, however, from other things; from saving 
in overhead charges, from the using of material in a prede- 
termined correct way, from the using of machinery in a pre- 
determined most efficient way, from the elimination of the 
time a workman wastes in going after material and tools, 
from the elimination of the misapplication of muscular and 
nervous energy in unnecessary motions, and from compulsory 



12 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

periods of rest, even, which the workman will ordinarily not 
take for himself. The beginner at golf expends more energy 
in a round of nine holes than the experienced player in a 
round of eighteen; the skilful carpenter expends far less 
energy in planing a board than does the novice. Scientific 
Management strives to teach the workman skill, and to 
prevent over-exertion as much as to prevent loafing. One 
of the most impressive things to the visitor at a plant so 
organized is the absence on the one hand of loitering and on 
the other hand of haste. 

Fourth, Scientific Management is inapplicable because of 
the mobility of labor; to teach the laborer the best method 
requires that he be retained for a period, but as a rule labor 
is continually coming into and going out of a plant, and before 
a laborer becomes skilful he is off and a new, awkward man 
has been hired to take his place. This criticism over-empha- 
sizes the mobility of labor; it premises a mobility which 
the average manager does not experience. I once asked the 
manager of a plant organized according to the principles of 
Scientific Management what was the average time a work- 
man remained with him. Eight years, he replied. He stated 
further that the average time was increasing under the new 
conditions of organization. Scientific Management carries 
with it its own corrective of the loss which comes from too 
great a mobility of labor. The fact that a workman is per- 
mitted to work under conditions which render him more 
productive and that he is paid according to his ability keeps 
him in the plant. 

Fifth, It inaugurates a spying system among the laborers 
which results in mutual distrust, quarrels and absence of 
esprit. I do not know what is meant by spying system, 
unless it refers to the supposed fact that, in a sequence of 
processes, if one workman fails to keep up to standard, it will 
cause loss to another workman who to protect himself will 
have to complain of the first workman. This criticism is 
due to assumptions concerning Scientific Management which 
are not true. No workman has to complain of another; if 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 13 

a workman is derelict the fact is reported automatically to 
the management by the impersonal time slip, and it is the 
duty of management to relieve the situation before any 
other workman can become aware of it. The relationship is 
not between workman and workman, but between workman 
and the order-of-work clerk. The persons of whom the 
workman may have occasion to complain are those in the 
routing, an executive, department. And as a matter of fact, 
finally, I have not observed, and no one has reported that he 
has observed, in a plant in which Scientific Management has 
become well established, any lack of harmony in the labor 
force; on the contrary, it is the consensus of opinion that a 
fine spirit of cooperation is conspicuous in such plants. 

Sixth, Workmen have had a bitter experience with the piece- 
rate system; have been "speeded up" by increases in piece- 
rates only to have the rates cut. May not the differential 
wage system of Scientific Management be used against the 
workman in a similar way? This is a reasonable question. 
Such a manipulation of the differential wage system seems to 
me to be possible, but I doubt whether it is probable. In the 
first place, the experience of manufacturers who have reduced 
piece-rates has been as bitter as the experience of the laborer. 
They are coming to consider the rate-cutting of the past as 
one of the great blunders of management. It will take exceed- 
ingly strong temptation to induce them to try it again. In 
the second place, piece-rates in the past have been established 
without a sufficient knowledge of the conditions of produc- 
tion. They gave to the workman all the increase of produc- 
tion except that resulting from reduction in overhead costs. 
The invention of new and improved machines brought prac- 
tically nothing to management, and placed it at a disastrous 
disadvantage in competition with firms paying day-wages, 
to which came all the advantages of the introduction of more 
efficient machines. Rate-cutting was compelled by the cir- 
cumstances of competition. Under Scientific Management, 
on the other hand, rates are determined only after exhaustive 
investigations of the productivity of a laborer in combination 



I 4 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

with a given machine, and a separate rate is established for 
every such combination. If a new and more efficient machine 
is introduced, a new rate is established as the result of a new 
investigation. So long as plants organized under Scientific 
Management enjoy the resulting differential advantage in 
competition with plants paying day-wages, there will be little 
danger of rate-cutting, for in proportion as the earnings of 
workmen increase does the unit cost of the product decrease. 
If the time should come, as it is reasonable to expect it will 
come, when all plants in a competitive industry should be 
organized according to the principles of Scientific Manage- 
ment, so that the differential advantage would no longer 
exist, there might be temptation to rate-cutting. But under 
those conditions the temptation would be no greater than to 
cut under the day-wage system. And if unions still existed 
labor would be in as good a position to protect itself in the 
one case as in the other. 

Seventh, The increase of efficiency which results from Sci- 
entific Management will throw labor out of employment. 
The untenable assertion that such would be its ultimate effect 
is not deserving of serious consideration. But that there may 
be temporarily such a result in a given industry is possible, 
if increased demand resulting from decreased selling price 
should not pari passu accompany increased efficiency in 
production. It is good economics to assume that in the 
long run improved methods will make employment for a 
larger number of persons; but it is also good sense for the 
laborer to take into consideration the possible immediate 
consequences of lack of employment for a season. The 
saving factor in the situation is that Scientific Management 
cannot be applied in a day. To apply it to a given plant is 
a matter of years. The organizing engineers capable of apply- 
ing it with such results in increased productive efficiency as 
have been of late brought to our attention are and always 
will be few. If there is an impending revolution in industry 
comparable to the revolution at the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, it will be quite different in at least one respect; 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 15 

systems of Scientific Management will not be turned out as 
was cotton and power machinery, in great quantities at a 
relatively low cost and standardized to fit any and all plants. 
Each plant presents a distinct problem to the organizing 
engineer, a problem of several years duration. There can 
therefore never be unemployment of a large body of men on 
account of sudden wide-spread more efficient organization. 
The firms which introduce Scientific Management usually 
enjoy such a differential advantage that they are able to 
make prices which enable them to increase their plants so 
as to take care of the small amount of what would other- 
wise be surplus labor. 

Eighth, It is asserted that labor is not allowed to help fix 
the rate of compensation. Labor has as yet expressed no 
desire to do so. In all cases of reorganization rates have been 
fixed so that labor has been able to earn more than it has 
demanded. If the time should come, as it surely will come, 
when labor asks to be allowed a voice in establishing differ- 
ential rates under Scientific Management, there is nothing in 
the nature of that form of organization to make it impossible. 
On the contrary, it is probable that such cooperation between 
management and labor would work out more smoothly than 
under present conditions. The methods of determining what 
the combination of a machine and a man can do is so scientif- 
ically accurate that facts could be easily ascertained, and both 
labor and manager are reasonable when they know the facts. 
Whether labor would enjoy the opportunity of helping fix 
rates would depend on the solidarity of the group in making 
its demand. 

Ninth, It is asserted that Scientific Management would 
impair the solidarity of labor; that it would break down union- 
ism by substituting individual bargaining in the place of 
collective bargaining for which unionism is now struggling. 
Scientific Management aims to do away with equal payment 
to all laborers irrespective of their productivity, but it does 
not aim to do away with collective bargaining. It is possible 
under Scientific Management for a union through its selected 



16 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

representatives to take a part in determining what is the best 
method of performing an operation, what would be a reason- 
able task, and what would be a reasonable division of the 
increased returns. These things once determined, it would 
have to permit its individual members to be paid according 
to their individual contributions to the increased returns. 
Scientific Management would impair the solidarity of union- 
ism to the extent that that solidarity is dependent upon flat 
hour-rates for all men; it would not impair the solidarity by 
making collective bargaining impossible. 

I have not enumerated as a criticism of Scientific Manage- 
ment the assertion that a great number of inefficient, of "fake," 
organizing engineers is likely to arise to exploit the new pro- 
fession and to work havoc with those plants whose managers 
they induce to accept their services. It is a real danger, but 
it is not a legitimate criticism of Scientific Management. 
Managers should realize that ability to organize successfully 
a business depends upon a combination of qualities not "found 
together in many men, — largeness of vision, capacity for 
details, patience, tact which is born of sympathy, the capac- 
ity to analyze and to combine, and scientific knowledge of 
technical processes. 



THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER THE TWELFTH 

Chairman, HONORABLE HENRY B. QUINBY 

Formerly Governor of New Hampshire 



THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC 
MANAGEMENT 

INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

IT is certainly most gratifying to me to visit again this 
splendid college of which the citizens of New Hampshire 
are so proud. I congratulate the authorities of Dart- 
mouth and of the Amos Tuck School upon having become 
leaders, by calling this conference, in the dissemination of 
knowledge of Scientific Management. 

The scope of Scientific Management is broad. It is of 
importance to capital and to labor, to large corporations and 
to small concerns, to the superintendent and to the artisan, 
guiding the efforts of each into channels where there shall 
be the least loss of energy. It is not my purpose, in the 
presence of the pioneer in this science, to describe the 
methods advocated by him for the conservation of produc- 
tive energy; but I wish to refer to one instance of the uni- 
versality of its application which has come under my own 
observation. 

I was recently invited to Fort Hancock, Sandy Hook, to 
see the big guns fired. The gunners made two hits out of 
three shots at a moving target six miles away, the guns being 
fired at intervals of thirty seconds. Remarking upon the 
speed and accuracy of the firing, my attention was called 
to a recent article by Lieutenant-Commander W. B. Tardy 
upon Scientific Management of the Navy, in which he ex- 
plains most interestingly how such rapidity and precision are 
obtained by its application, and in which he gives proper 
credit to Mr. Taylor. 

19 



20 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

One of the honors which has been conferred upon me as 
presiding officer of this first session of the conference, is 
that of presenting to you a gentleman who needs no intro- 
duction to this audience, Dr. Ernest Fox Nichols, President 
of Dartmouth College. 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME 

BY ERNEST FOX NICHOLS, LL.D. 
President of Dartmouth College 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

IT is a very pleasant privilege to bid you who have come 
to this conference on Scientific Management a wel- 
come to Dartmouth College. It is with great pleasure 
that the trustees place at your full disposal such hospitality 
and such means of comfort as may be provided in a country 
college. It is a very great satisfaction to all the friends of 
Dartmouth College that this first significant conference on 
the subject of Scientific Management should be held here. 
We are especially glad of it for two reasons: 

The first is, that it affords the college a rather unusual 
opportunity to do a service to the state and to the nation in 
bringing together those who have developed this new science, 
and those who seek to know more of its application. 

The second is, that we have in Dartmouth College a very 
large body of young men who intend going into commercial 
and industrial pursuits at the end of their college course. 
For several years past more than half the men who have left 
the college have gone into some branch of industry. The 
high example which this conference will set cannot fail to 
be of the largest profit to this growing group of young men. 

Over a decade ago, when the proportion of the graduates 
of the college who planned to go into business careers began 
to grow rapidly, those who were in charge of the college at 
that time wisely foresaw that a progressive institution of learn- 
ing could no longer neglect some of the wider principles which 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 21 

govern in the world of business. They even more wisely 
foresaw, however, that the young man who would go into 
business later must be trained not only for the business 
methods of today, but likewise for the business methods of 
tomorrow. Consequently, it was concluded that the only 
foundation upon which it is safe. to attempt to build a busi- 
ness man of the future is on the broad foundation laid in 
the earlier years of the college. At Dartmouth, therefore, 
was established the first graduate school of administration 
and finance in the country, and our experience, although 
it is still young, has proved to us that the foundation was a 
wise one. 

The Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance is 
entering upon its eleventh year. That body of underlying 
principles and practices called Scientific Management is not 
very much older. It is therefore a great pleasure to see the 
two, the Tuck School and Scientific Management, standing 
here together tonight in the attitude of mutual helpfulness. 

The Chairman: On such an important occasion as this 
we should examine first the principles of Scientific Manage- 
ment; and it is fortunate that we have with us tonight the 
man who first began to study and to apply them systemati- 
cally. He began as a common laborer, served his apprentice- 
ship as pattern-maker and machinist, and finally became 
chief engineer of a great steel works. In that position he 
learned to know the problems of management and began 
those scientific investigations out of which grew Scientific 
Management. But he is not content with that great con- 
structive work. A man of only middle age, he is vigorously 
young and busy, — so busy that he cannot afford, as he puts 
it, to work for money. Just as he devoted the earlier years 
of his life to faithful service for those by whom he was em- 
ployed, he is now devoting himself faithfully and strenuously 
to the service of every one engaged in industry, — the laborer 
not less than the employer. That is why we are able to have 
him here tonight. It gives me pleasure to present to you 
Mr. Frederick W. Taylor. 



22 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 

BY FREDERICK W. TAYLOR 

Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

ON behalf of several of my colleagues who are here 
tonight, and more particularly on my own behalf, 
I wish to express the appreciation which we feel for 
the honor which is being conferred on us by the presence 
on this platform of the present governor of this state and of 
one of its most distinguished past governors. I think that 
I can say that it is the most distinguished honor which has 
yet been conferred on any meeting at which Scientific Man- 
agement has been discussed, and we are deeply grateful that 
these gentlemen, busy as they are, should have taken the 
time and the trouble to come here. 

There is one fact which has been impressed on me more 
than any other during the past six months. I knew it to be 
a fact before, but it had never been brought home to me in 
the same way as during the past six months. It is the funda- 
mental and the very sad fact that almost every workman 
who is engaged in the mechanic arts, who is engaged in any- 
thing like cooperative work, looks upon it as his duty to go 
slow instead of to go fast. This is the most unfortunate 
fact in any way connected with Scientific Management, and 
the causes which lead to it should therefore be very carefully 
considered. 

I may say at the start, that if any one is to blame for this 
attitude, we are, and not the laborers. It is our fault more 
than the laborers', that almost every workman looks upon 
it as his duty to do as small a day's work as he can instead 
of as large a day's work as he can. Now do not misunder- 
stand me on this point; I am referring only to those work- 
men who are engaged in what may be called organized industry. 
I am not referring to the isolated men who work perhaps 
for themselves, perhaps for an employer with one or two 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 23 

employees, but I am speaking chiefly of the great mass of men 
who are doing the industrial work of this country. This 
going slow, instead of going fast, to my mind is the most 
serious fact that we have to face in this country. It is 
certainly the most serious fact that is being faced by the 
English people at this time. 

If any of you will get close to the average workman in this 
country — close enough to him so that he will talk to you as 
an intimate friend — he will tell you that in his particular 
trade if, we will say, each man were to turn out twice as much 
work as he is now doing, there could but one result follow: 
namely, that one-half the men in his trade would be thrown 
out of work. Now this fallacy is firmly believed by nineteen 
men out of twenty of all the workmen throughout the country, 
and, strange to say, I have found that perhaps three-quarters 
of the people in this country who have spent the larger pro- 
portion of their life in getting an education doubt very much 
if it would be of any great advantage to the working people 
to turn out more work than they are doing. The average 
man then, in all classes in this country, doubts if it would really 
be of any great benefit to the working people to turn out a 
larger output than they are now doing. Every labor union 
in this country, so far as I know, has taken steps, or is taking 
steps, to restrict output. 

In this these men are strictly honest; they are doing just 
what you and I would do if we were in their position and 
held their views. If any of us thought that by increasing 
our work we should throw one-half of our friends out of 
employment, we should take the same view that they do. 

This doctrine is preached by almost every labor leader in 
the country, and is taught by every workman to his children 
as they are growing up; and I repeat, as I said in the begin- 
ning, that it is our fault more than theirs that this fallacy 
prevails. 

What men here — not more than two or three — have 
ever spoken to an audience of workmen and attempted to 
counteract that fallacy? Not more than two or three in 



24 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

this audience have ever gone before an audience of working- 
men and tried to point out the truth, that the greatest 
blessing that working-men can confer on their brothers and 
themselves is to increase their output. 

While the labor leaders and the workmen themselves in 
season and out of season are pointing out the necessity of 
restriction of output, not one step are we taking to counter- 
act that fallacy; therefore, I say, the fault is ours and not 
theirs. 

All that it is necessary to do, for any one who questions 
the fact whether it is a good thing for working people to 
increase their output or not, is to look into the history of any 
trade in this country. Look into the history of any trade in 
this country, and you will see that directly the opposite is 
true; that an increased output invariably gives more work to 
more men, and never in the history of the world has it more 
than temporarily, and then for only a very short time, dimin- 
ished the number of men at work in any trade. That is the 
truth! Just look into any trade and you will see it. 

I shall take the time to give one illustration only. Take 
the great cotton industry, one of the greatest industries of 
your state; one of the greatest, if not the greatest indus- 
try of New England. In Manchester, England, in 1840 or 
thereabouts, there were 5,000 cotton operatives. Power 
machinery began to be introduced in the cotton mills about 
that time, and the moment those 5,000 men saw the new 
machinery coming they knew that there would not be work 
for more than 1,000 out of the 5,000 in their trade. There 
was no question about it whatever. So what did they do? 
They did just what you or I would have done under similar 
circumstances. They broke into the mills where the machinery 
was being installed and smashed it up; they burned down the 
mills and beat up the "scabs" who were employed to run the 
new machinery; and they did it for self-protection, just as 
you or I would have done it, believing what they did as firmly 
as they did. 

Now power machinery came in the cotton industry, just 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 25 

as all labor-saving machinery is sure to come in any industry, 
in spite of any opposition from any source. It always has 
come, and it always will come. And what was the result? 
I am told that the average yardage of cloth now turned out 
per man in the cotton industry is about eight or ten times the 
yardage turned out under the old hand conditions. 

In 1840, in Manchester, England, there were 5,000 cotton 
operatives; in Manchester, England, now there are 265,000 
cotton operatives. Multiply that ratio by eight to ten and 
you will see that between 400 and 500 times the yardage of 
cloth is now being turned out from Manchester, England, 
that was turned out in 1840. Has that increase in production 
thrown people out of work? No. It is merely typical of 
what has taken place and is taking place in every trade. 
The increase of output merely means bringing more wealth 
into this world. That is the meaning of it; that now 450 
times as much wealth in cotton goods is brought into this 
world as was brought in 1840, and that is the real wealth of 
the world. And the workmen, the trades union, the philan- 
thropist or the mill owner who restrict output as a perma- 
nent policy (I do not mean to say it is not necessary both for 
workmen and manufacturers at times to temporarily restrict 
output) are about the worst enemies to their fellow-men there 
are. There is hardly any worse crime to my mind than that 
of deliberately restricting output; of failing to bring the only 
things into the world which are of real use to the world, the 
products of men and the soil. The world's history shows that 
just as fast as you bring the good things that are needed by 
man into the world, man takes and uses them. That one 
fact, the immense increase in the productivity of man, marks 
the difference between civilized and uncivilized countries, 
marks the one great advance we have made on 100 to 200 
years ago; it is due to that increase of productivity that 
the working people of today, with all the talk about their 
misery and their horrible treatment, live almost as well as 
kings did 250 years ago. They have better food, better 
clothing, and on the whole more comforts than kings had 



26 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

250 years ago. And that is due to just one thing, increase of 
output. 

Take this matter of cotton goods. Tell the average work- 
man of today that when he has a cotton shirt on he has a 
luxury. Will he not laugh at you? In 1840 a cotton shirt 
worn by a workman was a luxury; now every man, woman 
and child in every workman's family wears cotton goods as 
an absolute necessity. Just so with a hundred other things 
that we have come to look upon as necessities, which a hun- 
dred years ago were luxuries. And to what is that due? To 
the increased productivity of man. 

I am talking so long on this subject because it lies at the 
very root of Scientific Management, for Scientific Manage- 
ment has for its object just what labor-saving machinery has 
for its object, increased output per unit of human effort. 

The second cause for going slow is entirely due to us. I 
think we are more to blame than they for the first cause, the 
fallacy that the increase of output will throw men out of work, 
but we are entirely to blame for the second cause. 77 lies in 
our own inefficient systems of management. 

The piece-work system has been introduced in the industries 
of this country to such an extent that hardly a workman can 
be found in any industry who does not know something about 
its working. All of you gentlemen doubtless understand all 
about the piece-work system. If you do, then I will remind 
you that when you put a workman on piece-work and ask 
him to make, we will say, ten implements like this slide-rule 
in a day, and offer to pay him twenty-five cents for making 
each of them, you count on his using his ingenuity and on his 
making a careful study of the methods by which he is going 
to make them, and so increase his daily output. You hope 
that later instead of making ten pieces per day, he will make 
twelve, fourteen, fifteen or even twenty pieces a day. This 
is the hope of the manufacturer. 

We will assume that that workman knows nothing about 
the piece-work system. With the opportunity before him to 
have his ingenuity and his harder work rewarded by getting 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 27 

more pay per day, he would very likely, after six months or 
a year, learn how to make fifteen of these pieces instead of 
ten, or, let us say, twenty instead of ten. If he made twenty 
he would be earning $5 per day in place of $2.50 which he 
earned before he was put on piece-work. 

The foreman over those men, we will say, is a straight, 
square man, and in all honesty he encourages them to turn 
out more than ten pieces; we will say he encourages them to 
get out twenty pieces. Now in almost all boards of directors 
of our companies there are a number of very wise gentlemen 
who are perhaps members of other boards of directors, and at 
certain intervals these wise and philanthropic men are very 
apt to ask for an analysis of the pay-roll of their company. 
And when they see that a certain workman in their employ 
is earning $5 a day, they are naturally horror-stricken. 
"Why," they say, "our orders to that superintendent were 
that he was to pay the ruling wages which prevail around 
here; $2.50 a day is all any machinist ought to earn; it 
is horrible to think of a mere machinist with no educa- 
tion earning $5 a day; Mr. President, I move that our 
superintendent be instructed to see that the men in this 
establishment are paid no more than other machinists in 
other establishments. Why should we be spoiling the labor 
of this part of the country?" So Mr. Foreman, although 
he may be an honest man, and although he has encouraged 
those men to turn out that work, in many cases perhaps has 
actually made promises to them that if they increased their 
output their wages would not be cut, that man is forced by 
the board of directors to go back on his word, to cut down 
the piece-work price; he has to force those men to make 
twenty pieces for $2.50 a day where before they made 
ten pieces for $2.50 a day. Now the working people of 
this country are not fools; generally one cut of that sort is 
enough; two always are enough; and from that time for- 
ward a workman is nothing but a fool if he does not soldier 
to "beat the band," if he does not deliberately try to make 
the people around him believe that he is working as fast as 



28 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

he can, while he is really doing a very ordinary day's work. 
And, gentlemen, that is our fault, not his, and not a thing are 
we doing as a whole to remedy that state of affairs. 

It was precisely this condition which forced us to take the 
first step which led towards Scientific Management. I had 
had a war lasting some two or three years with the workmen 
who were my friends, over whom I was finally placed, a con- 
stant running fight for two or three years, in which I was 
trying to drive them in spite of their resistance to do a larger 
amount of work. Having worked with them, I knew they were 
soldiering to the extent of about two-thirds, and I hoped to 
be able to get them to at least double their work, and finally 
I did, and then they were one-third short of what they could 
have done. After three years of that fight, three years of 
never looking a man in the face from morning till night except 
as a tactical enemy, three years of wondering what that fellow 
was going to do to me next and wondering what I could do 
to him next, I made up my mind that some remedy would 
have to be devised for that state of things or I would cease to 
be a foreman and go into some other business. It was in an 
endeavor to remedy such a state of things that the first step 
was taken leading towards Scientific Management. 

In taking account of stock, after I had definitely made up 
my mind either to try to remedy that state of things or get 
out of industrial management, I found that the chief lack 
was the lack of knowledge. I had no illusions as to my own 
knowledge; I knew that these workmen knew ten times as 
much collectively as I knew. And we started to take measures 
which should enable the foreman of that shop to know approxi- 
mately what his men knew. We started then along various 
lines of study with the purpose of educating the owners 
and managers of the shops of the Midvale Steel Works so 
that they also should know approximately what their men 
knew. That was the first step leading towards Scientific 
Management. 

I want to tell you as briefly as I can what Scientific Manage- 
ment is. It certainly is not what most people think it to be. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 29 

It is not a lot of efficiency expedients. It is not the printing 
and ruling of a lot of pieces of blank paper and spreading them 
by the ton about the country. It is not any particular system 
of paying men. It is not a system of figuring costs of manu- 
facture. It is none of the ordinary devices which unfortunately 
are going by the name of Scientific Management. It may in 
its essence be said in the present state of industry to involve 
a complete mental revolution, both on the part of the manage- 
ment and of the men. It is a complete change in the mental 
attitude of both sides towards their respective duties and 
towards their opponents. That is what constitutes Scientific 
Management. 

There are now, I don't know exactly how many, but 
at a fair estimate I should say 50,000 men working under 
Scientific Management. These men are on the average turn- 
ing out twice as much work per man per day as they formerly 
did. 

As a result of this increase in output, their employers are 
profiting by a very material reduction of the cost of whatever 
they are making. This diminution of cost has enabled them, 
on the one hand, to earn a larger profit and, on the other hand, 
in most cases to somewhat reduce the selling price of the goods 
which they make. And let me tell you, gentlemen, that in 
all cases of Scientific Management, in all cases of increase in 
efficiency, the general public takes almost the whole of the 
increase in the end. We consumers are the beneficiaries of 
the increase in output. The history of the matter shows that 
neither the manufacturer nor the workman through any long 
period gets very much benefit from increased output except 
as the whole world takes it. The world takes that benefit 
and is perfectly entitled to it. Now the workman: what 
have these 50,000 men who are working under Scientific 
Management got out of it? On an average those men are 
earning from 30 per cent to 100 per cent higher wages 
than they did, and I look upon that as perhaps the smallest 
part of their gain. Those workmen, to my mind, have 
gained something far greater than that; in place of looking 



3 o TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

at their employers with suspicion, in place of looking upon 
them as at least tactical enemies although they may be per- 
sonal friends, they look upon their employers as the very best 
friends they have in the world. I look at that as the greatest 
gain that can come under Scientific Management, far greater 
than any increase in wages. The harmony that exists between 
employer and employee under Scientific Management is the 
greatest gain that can come to both. 

That is mere assertion, but in proof of the fact that this 
harmony does exist between the workman and the employers 
under Scientific Management, I wish to make the statement 
that until perhaps three months ago there never had been a 
single strike of men employed under Scientific Management. 
Even during the difficult period of changing from the old man- 
agement to the new, that difficult and dangerous period when 
a mental revolution was taking place and causing readjust- 
ment of attitude towards their own duties and towards the 
duties of the management, there had never been a strike until 
this year. This system has been applied to a great number 
and variety of industries, and the fact that until recently 
there had never been a single strike is ample proof that these 
friendly relations actually exist between both sides. That, 
perhaps, is the most important characteristic of Scientific 
Management. 

In order to explain what Scientific Management is, I want 
to present first what I believe all of you gentlemen will recog- 
nize as the best of the older types of management and to 
contrast with that type the principles of Scientific Manage- 
ment. If you have an establishment with 500 or 1,000 men, 
there will be, perhaps, twenty different trades represented. 
Each of the workmen in those trades has learned practi- 
cally all he knows from watching other workmen. When 
he was a young apprentice he would watch a journeyman, 
imitate his motions, and finally perhaps the journeyman would 
get interested and turn around and give the boy a little friendly 
advice; and thus the boy, merely by personal observation 
and a very small amount of incidental teaching, learned the 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 31 

trade. In just this way every operative in every one of those 
twenty different trades in your establishment has learned his 
trade; it has come to him just as it did in the Middle Ages, 
from mouth to mouth, or rather from hand to eye, not through 
teaching. Nevertheless, in spite of the old traditional way of 
learning a trade, this knowledge is the greatest asset that a 
workman possesses. It is his capital. 

The manufacturer who has any intelligence must realize 
that his first duty should be to obtain the initiative of all 
these tradesmen who are working under him, to obtain their 
hard work, their good-will, their ingenuity, their determina- 
tion to treat their employer's business as if it were their own. 
And in this connection I wish to strain the meaning of the 
word "initiative" to indicate all of those good qualities. It 
should be the first object of a good employer to obtain the 
real initiative of his workmen. 

There is an occasional employer, possibly one in a hundred, 
who deliberately sets out to give his employees something 
better in the way of wages and opportunities than his competi- 
tors give their men. These very few rare employers who are 
farther sighted than the average, deliberately set out to give 
their men a special incentive, and in return they expect, and 
they frequently get, from their men an initiative which other 
employers do not dream of getting. However, this initiative 
is generally spasmodic. Workmen come to have confidence 
in their superintendent, or in their foreman, and in the honor 
of their company; and when the superintendent tells them 
that he intends to have them earn more money than other 
employers are paying their workmen, they believe it and 
respond in a generous way. But I want to tell what happens 
almost always, even in such a case: some new workman comes 
in for whom they have respect; he tells the men the usual 
story; that the same promise had been made to him or to 
friends of his in some other shop by a foreman, a square man, 
but it happened that that foreman died, or was replaced, or 
the board of directors did just what I outlined at the begin- 
ning, and then those promises went to the winds, and the 



$1 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

men found themselves working harder than before at the old 
wages. When a man comes in among them and tells them 
that story the men think, "Perhaps that is so, — it is likely 
to happen in our shop; I guess we had better not work too 
hard," and they slow down. Finally, as they think it over 
and realize that their foreman can be relied on, they say, 
"This fellow is all right, he can't treat us like that, we have 
got to be square," and eventually they will work hard again. 
But under the old system the initiative of the workmen is 
obtained spasmodically at best; it is rarely obtained to the 
fullest extent. 

The first advantage which Scientific Management has over 
the older type is that under Scientific Management the initia- 
tive of the workmen is obtained with absolute regularity; 
their hard work, good-will and ingenuity are obtained with 
absolute regularity. I refer of course only to those cases in 
which Scientific Management is actually introduced and in 
operation, not where it has just been started; but in practi- 
cally all cases where Scientific Management has been once 
established the initiative of the workmen is obtained with 
absolute regularity. That alone is a marked advantage of 
Scientific Management over the best of the other types. 

This is not, however, the greatest advantage of Scientific 
Management. This is the lesser of two advantages. The 
greater advantage comes from the new and unheard-of burdens 
and duties which are assumed by the men in the management, 
duties which have never been performed before by the men 
on the management side. These new duties are divided into 
four large classes which have been, properly or improperly, 
called "The Four Principles of Scientific Management." 

The first of these four great duties which are undertaken 
by the management is to deliberately gather in all of the rule- 
of-thumb knowledge which is possessed by all the twenty 
different kinds of tradesmen who are at work in the establish- 
ment, — knowledge which has never been recorded, which 
is in the heads, hands, and bodies, in the knack, skill, dex- 
terity which these men possess — to gather that knowledge, 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 33 

classify it, tabulate it, and in most cases reduce it to laws and 
rules; in many cases, work out mathematical formulas which, 
when applied with the cooperation of the management to the 
work of the men, will lead to an enormous increase of the out- 
put of the workmen. That is the first of the four great prin- 
ciples of Scientific Management, the development of a science 
to replace the old rule-of-thumb knowledge of the workmen. 

The second of the new duties assumed by the management 
is the scientific selection and then the progressive development 
of the workmen. The workmen are studied; it may seem 
preposterous, but they are studied just as machines have been 
studied in the past and are being more than ever studied. 
In the past we have given a great deal of study to machines 
and little to workmen, but under Scientific Management the 
workman becomes the subject of far more careful and accurate 
study than was ever given to machines. After we have studied 
the workman, so that we know his possibilities, we then pro- 
ceed, as one friend to another, to try to develop every work- 
man in our employ, so as to bring out his best faculties and 
to train him to do a higher, more interesting and more profit- 
able class of work than he has done in the past. This is the 
second of the principles of Scientific Management. 

The third duty is to bring the scientifically selected work- 
man and the science together. They must be brought together; 
they will not come together without it. I do not wish for an 
instant to have any one think I have a poor opinion of a work- 
man; far from it. I am merely stating a fact when I say that 
you may put your scientific methods before a workman all you 
are a mind to, and nine times out of ten he will do the same old 
way. Unless some one brings the science and the workman 
together, the workman will slip back as sure as fate into the 
same old ways, and will not practise the better, the scientific, 
method. When I say, make the workman do his work in 
accordance with the laws of science, I do not say make in an 
arbitrary sense. If I did it would apply far more to the 
employing than to the working class, because in the work 
of changing from the old to the new system, nine-tenths of 



34 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

our troubles are concerned with those on the management 
side, and only one-tenth with the workmen. Those in the 
management are infinitely more stubborn, infinitely harder 
to make change their ways than are the workmen. So I 
want to qualify the word make; it has rather a hard sound. 
Some one must inspire the men to make the change, for it 
will not occur naturally. If you allow things to wait, it will 
not occur in ten years when it should occur in two months. 
Some one must take it in hand. 

The fourth principle of Scientific Management is a little 
more difficult than the others to make clear. It is almost 
impossible to explain to the average man what I mean by it, 
until he sees one of our companies organized under Scientific 
Management. 

The fourth principle is a deliberate division of the work 
which was formerly done by the workmen into two sections, 
one of which is handed over to the management. An immense 
mass of new duties is thrown on the management which for- 
merly belonged to the workmen. And it is this handing of 
duties which they never dreamed of assuming before over to 
those on the management side, requiring cooperation between 
the management and the workmen, which accounts more 
than anything else for the fact that there has never been a 
strike under Scientific Management. If you and I are doing 
a piece of work together, and realize that we are mutually 
dependent upon one another, it is impossible for us to quarrel. 
We may quarrel, perhaps, during the first few days. Some 
men find it difficult to cooperate. But when they once get 
to going and see that the prosperity of both sides depends 
on each man doing his share of the work, what is there to 
strike about? They realize they cannot strike against the 
friend who is helping them. That is what it is, a case of help- 
fulness. I think I can say truthfully that under Scientific 
Management the managers are more the servants of the men 
than the men are the servants of the managers. I think I 
can say that the sense of obligation is greater on the part 
of the management than on the part of the men. They 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 35 

have to do their share and be always ready. That is the 
feeling of those on the management side under Scientific 
Management. 

In order to make that equal division a little clearer, I 
will say that in one of our machine shops, for instance where 
we do miscellaneous work, not work that is repeated over 
and over again, there will be at least one man on the manage- 
ment side for every three workmen throughout the whole 
establishment. That indicates a real division of work be- 
tween the two sides. And those men on the management 
side are busy, just as busy as the workmen, and far more 
profitably busy than they were before. 

Let me repeat briefly these four principles of Scientific 
Management. I want you to see these four principles plainly 
as the essence of the illustration I am going to give you 
of Scientific Management. They are the development of 
a science to replace the old rule-of -thumb methods; the 
scientific selection and then the progressive teaching and 
development of the workmen; the bringing of the scien- 
tifically selected workmen and the science together; and 
then this almost equal division of the work between the 
management and the men. 

I wish to convince you of the importance of these principles. 
So far what I have said has been mere assertion. The only 
means that I have of convincing you of the value of these 
principles is to give illustrations of their application. But I 
fear my time is too short to give more than two or three. 

I usually begin with the most elementary kind of labor 
that I know, and try to show the immense power of those 
four principles when applied even to that extraordinarily 
elementary form of labor. The simplest kind of work that 
I know is handling pig iron. A man stoops down to the 
ground or a pile, picks up with his hands a piece of pig iron 
weighing usually about ninety pounds, walks a certain number 
of steps and drops it on a pile or on the ground. I dare say 
that it seems preposterous to you to say that there is any such 
thing as the science of handling pig iron, that there is any 



36 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

such thing as the training of a workman and the cooperation 
and the equal division of the work between the two sides in 
handling pig iron. It seems absolutely preposterous. But 
I assure you that had I time I could convince every one of 
you that there is a great science in handling pig iron. It 
takes a little too long to give that particular illustration, 
and I very much regret that I must begin with a form of 
labor which is far more scientific than handling pig iron, 
namely, shoveling dirt. 

I dare say that you think there is no science in shoveling 
dirt, that any one can shovel dirt. "Why," you say, "to 
shovel it you just shovel, that is all there is to it." Those 
who have had anything to do with Scientific Management 
realize, however, that there is a best way in doing everything, 
and that that best way can always be formulated into certain 
rules; that you can get your knowledge away from the old 
chaotic rule-of-thumb knowledge into organized knowledge. 
And if any one of you should start to find the most important 
element in the science of shoveling, every one of you with a 
day's or two days' thought would be on the track of finding 
it. You would not find it in a day, but you would know what 
to look for. We found it after we started to think on the 
subject of shoveling. And what is it? There are very many 
elements, but I want to call your attention to this important 
one. At what shovel-load will a man do his biggest day's 
work? There must be some best shovel-load; what is it? 

The workers of the Bethlehem Steel Company, for instance, 
almost all owned their own shovels, and I have seen them 
go day after day to the same shovel for every kind of work, 
from shoveling rice coal, three and a half pounds to a shovel- 
load, to shoveling heavy wet ore, about thirty-eight pounds 
to the shovel-load. Is three and a half pounds right or is 
thirty-eight pounds right? Now the moment the question 
"What is the proper shovel-load?" is asked under Scientific 
Management, it does not become the duty of the manager 
to ask some one, to ask any shoveler, what is the best. The 
old style was, "John, how much ought you to take on your 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 37 

shovel?" Under Scientific Management it is the duty of 
the management to know what is the best, not to take what 
some one thinks. We selected two first-class shovelers. 
Never examine any one but a first-class man. By first-class 
I do not mean something impossible to get, or even difficult 
to get. Very few people know what you mean when you 
say first-class. I think I can explain it to you better by 
talking about something with which we are all familiar. 
We know mighty little about men, but there is hardly one of 
us here who does not know a good deal about horses, because 
we are in the habit of studying horses. Now if you have a 
stable full of horses containing large dray horses, carriage 
horses, saddle horses and so on, and want to pick a first-class 
horse for hauling a coal wagon, I know every one of you here 
would take the dray horse. I do not believe any of you 
would take the trotting horse and call him first-class at all. 
That is what I mean when I say first-class man. If you have 
a very small stable, when you have a good deal of coal to 
haul you may have to hitch your trotting horse to a light 
grocery wagon or even to your buggy to haul coal. But that 
is not a first-class horse for the purpose, and no one would 
think of studying a trotting horse hauling a buggy of coal 
to find what a first-class horse should do in hauling coal. 
There are many people who say, "You are looking for impos- 
sible people; you are setting a pace that nobody can live up 
to." Not at all. We are taking the man adapted to the 
work we wish done. 

So when we wanted to study the science of shoveling we 
took two men and said, "You are good shovelers; we want 
you to work squarely. We are going to ask you to do a lot 
of fool things, and we are going to pay you double wages 
while this investigation is going on. It will probably last 
two or three months. This man will be over you all day 
long with a stop-watch. He will time you; he will count 
the shovel-loads and tell you what to do. He does not want 
you to hurry; just go at your ordinary fair pace. But if 
either of you fellows tries to soldier on us, that will be the 



38 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

end of it; we will find you out as sure as you are born, and 
we will fire you out of this place. All we want is a square 
day's work; no soldiering. If you don't want to take that 
job, don't, but if you do we are very glad to pay you double 
wages while you are doing it." These men said they would 
be very glad to do it, and they were perfectly square; they 
were ready to do a fair day's work. That was all we asked 
of them, not something that would tire them out or exhaust 
them, but something they could live under forty years and 
be all right. 

We began by taking the maximum load on the shovel 
and counting the shovelfuls all day long and weighing the 
tonnage at the end of the day. I think it was about thirty- 
eight pounds to the shovel. We found how much those men 
could do when they were shoveling at thirty-eight pounds to 
the shovel on an average. And then we got shorter shovels 
holding about thirty-four pounds, and measured the tonnage 
per day, and it was greater than when they were using the 
thirty-eight pound shovel. They shoveled more with the 
thirty-four pound shovel-loads than with the thirty-eight 
pound shovel-loads. Again we reduced the load to thirty 
pounds and they did a still greater tonnage; again to twenty- 
eight pounds, and another increase; and the load kept on 
increasing as we diminished the shovel-load until we reached 
about twenty-one pounds; at twenty-one pounds the man 
did his biggest day's work. With twenty pounds, with eight- 
een pounds, with seventeen, and with fourteen, they did 
again a smaller day's work. Starting with a thirty-eight 
pound shovel, they went higher and higher until the biggest 
day's work was done with a twenty-one pound shovel; but 
when they got the lighter shovel the load went down as the 
shovel-load diminished. 

The foundation of that part of the science of shoveling, 
then, Lies in always giving a shoveler a shovel which will hold 
twenty-one pounds, whatever the material he is using. 

What were the consequences of that? In the Bethlehem 
Steel Works we had to build a shovel-room for our common 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 39 

laborers. Up to that time the men had owned their own 
shovels. We had to equip this room with eight or ten different 
kinds of shovels, so that whatever the man went at, whether 
rice coal on the one hand, or very heavy ore on the other, 
he would have just a twenty-one pound load. That meant 
organization in place of no organization. 

It meant also arranging that each one of the laborers in 
that yard had the right shovel every day for the kind of 
material he was going to work on. That required more 
organization. In place of the old-fashioned foreman who 
walked around with his men to work with them, telling them 
what to do, it meant the building of a large, elaborate labor 
office where three college men worked, besides their clerks 
and assistants, planning the work for each of these workmen 
at least one day in advance. That yard was about two 
miles long and half a mile wide; you cannot scatter 500 
to 600 men over a space of that size, doing all kinds of 
miscellaneous work, and get the man, the shovel and the 
other implements, and the work together at the right time 
unless you have an organization. It meant, then, building 
a big labor office and playing a game of chess one day in 
advance with these 500 men, locating them just as you 
would locate chessmen on your board. It required a time- 
table and a knowledge of how long it took them to do 
each kind of work. 

It meant also informing the men each day just what they 
had done the day before and just what they were to do that 
day. In order to do that, as each man came in the morning 
he had to reach his hand up to a pigeonhole (most of them 
could not read and write, but they could all find their pigeon- 
holes) and take out two slips of paper. One was a yellow 
slip and one was a white slip. If they found the yellow slip, 
those men who could not read and write knew perfectly 
well what it meant; it was just the general information: 
"Yesterday you did not earn the money that a first-class 
man ought to earn. We want you to earn at least 60 per 
cent beyond what other laborers are paid around Bethlehem. 



4 o TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

You failed to earn that much yesterday; there is something 
wrong." It is merely a notice to the man that there is some- 
thing wrong. The other piece of paper told him what imple- 
ment to use. He went to the tool-room, presented it, received 
the proper implement, and took it down to the part of the 
yard in which he was to work. 

When any of these workmen fell down for three or four 
days in succession, the old way would be to call him up and 
say, "Here, John, you are no good; get out of this; you are 
not doing a day's work. I don't have any man here who 
is not doing a day's work. Now get out of this." But that 
is not the way with Scientific Management. The moment 
the management sees that this man has fallen down, that it 
is something more than an accident, then a teacher — not 
a bulldozer, but a teacher — is sent out to him to find out 
what is the matter, and to study the man for the purpose 
of correcting his fault. In nine cases out of ten that teacher 
would perhaps find that the man had simply forgotten some- 
thing about the art of shoveling. I suppose you are skeptical 
about this "art of shoveling," but let me tell you there is a 
great deal to it. We have found that the most efficient method 
of shoveling is to put your right arm down on your right hip, 
hold your shovel on your left leg, and when you shovel into 
the pile throw the weight of your body upon the shovel. It 
does not take any muscle to do that; the weight of your 
body throws it if you get your arm braced. But if you 
attempt to do as most shovelers do, take it with your arms 
and shove into a stubborn pile, you are wasting a great deal 
of effort. Time and again we found that a man had forgotten 
his instructions and was throwing the weight of his arms 
instead of the weight of his body. The teacher would go to 
him and say, "You have forgotten what I told you about 
shoveling; I don't wonder you are not getting your premium; 
you ought to be getting 60 per cent more money. You 
are falling out of the first class. Now I want to show you 
again. Just watch the way this thing is done." The teacher 
would stand by him as a friend and show him how to earn his 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 41 

premium. Or perhaps if he found that the man was really 
not suited to that work, for instance that he was too light for 
it, the man would then be transferred to a lighter kind of 
work for which he was suited. It is in that way, by kindly 
and intimate personal study of them, that we find to what 
workmen are adapted. 

All of that takes money, and it is an important and very 
fair question whether it pays. Can you pay for all these 
time-study men who are developing the art of shoveling? 
Can you pay for your shovel tool-room, for the telephone 
system and all the clerks and teachers? The only answer 
to that is these facts. At the end of about three years we 
had practically the whole of the yard labor of the Bethlehem 
Steel Works transferred from the old piece-work and day-work 
plan to the new scientific plan. Those workmen under the 
old plan had earned $1.15 a day. Under the new plan they 
earned $1.85 a day, an increase of more than 60 per cent in 
wages. We had them studied and a report made. We 
found that they were practically all sober, that most of them 
were saving some little money, that they lived better than 
they ever had before, and that they were as contented a set 
of men as could be found together anywhere, a magnificent 
body of carefully selected men. That is what the men got 
out of it. 

What did the company get out of it? The old cost for 
handling a ton of materials in the yard of the Bethlehem Steel 
Company was between seven and eight cents a ton. The 
new cost, after all the costs of the clerical work in the office 
and the tool-room, of the teaching, the telephone system, 
the new implements and the higher wages, were taken into 
consideration, was between three and four cents a ton. And 
the actual cash saving to the Bethlehem Steel Company 
during the last year was between $70,000 and $80,000. That 
is what the company got out of it, and therefore the system 
is justified from the points of view both of the men and of 
the management. 

I am very sure that I could convince you that the ratio 



42 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

of gain of Scientific Management when applied to a trade 
that requires a high-class mechanic, is far greater than when 
applied to work like shoveling. The difficulty which I find is 
to convince men of the universality of these principles, that 
they are applicable to all kinds of human effort. I should 
like to convince you, I am sure that I could convince you, 
that with any of the more intricate kinds of work, the gain 
must be enormously greater than with the simple work; that 
no high-class mechanic can possibly do what he should for 
his own sake and for the employer's sake, without the friendly 
cooperation of a man on the management side. That is 
what I should like to prove to you, prove beyond the shadow 
of a doubt. 

Take the case of a machinist who is doing work that is 
repeated, we will say, over and over again. He is not the 
highest class mechanic, but he is fairly well up. It may be 
questioned whether it is possible for any scientific knowledge 
to help an intelligent mechanic, a man, for instance, who has 
had a high school education and who has worked for his whole 
life as a machinist. I want to show you that that man needs 
the help of — not a higher order of man, nothing of that sort, 
but of a man with a different type of education from his own; 
that the skilled workman needs it far more even than the 
cheap laborer needs it in order to do his work right. 

I take an actual case, that of a shop manufacturing small 
machines. This was a department of a large company which 
had been running under the old system many years. The 
article was a patented device that had been manufactured 
in this department about twelve years, perhaps more, by some 
300 workmen. These articles varied somewhat in size but 
they were made by the thousands. The men would naturally 
become highly skilled. Each man had his own machine, 
ran it from year end to year end, made comparatively few 
parts, and therefore became skilled in his work. 

Now the owner of this establishment was a very progressive 
man, and he came to the conclusion that he wanted to inves- 
tigate Scientific Management. So he sent for my friend, 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 43 

Mr. Barth, to see what Mr. Barth could do for him. After 
they had had a little sparring on the subject, Mr. Barth rather 
mortified the owner by telling him that he could come pretty 
close to doubling the output of his shop. After they had 
sparred a little over that, Mr. Barth suggested that he make 
a test to show the men in the shop what he could do. So a 
typical machine was selected, a machine which they both 
agreed was fairly representative of the machines in the shop, 
and the work which was then being done noted; the kind of 
work, the character of it and the time which it should take 
to do it was written down. Then Mr. Barth proceeded to 
study the machine, in just the way under Scientific Manage- 
ment all machines are analyzed in all shops that we go to. 
We do not go to some foreman or superintendent, or to the 
maker of the machine, and ask, "How fast do you think we 
should run this machine?" Not at all. A careful, thorough 
analysis was made of the possibilities of that machine, and 
to do that Mr. Barth used four slide-rules. One slide-rule 
will solve any problem in gearing in almost no time. It is a 
gear slide-rule. Another solves any problem about belts 
in a fraction of a minute. Another tells you how many 
pounds pressure a chip of any shape or kind will exert on 
the cutting tool, and therefore shows you how much resist- 
ance you have to overcome with your machine. The fourth 
slide-rule tells you what cutting-speed you can use with any 
kind of metal, with any depth of cut, with any feed and 
with any shape tool. 

Now with these four rules it is possible scientifically to 
analyze the machine, to know how it should be speeded for 
the particular kind of work that is in hand. And let me tell 
you — this may seem an extraordinary statement — let me 
tell you that there is not one machine in fifty in the average 
machine shop in this country that is speeded right. I say 
that with all confidence. I say it with perfect confidence, 
because last spring I was invited by the tool builders, the 
makers of these machines, to address them at their annual 
meeting, and I challenged them to contradict that fact. 



44 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

They were there, representatives of the tool builders of this 
country, and not one man took up my challenge. They 
knew, just as well as I know, that their speeds are nine- tenths 
guess and one-tenth knowledge, that they do not take into 
consideration the peculiarities of the shop their machines go 
into, in one case in fifty. They have no means of knowing 
the kind of material the machines are to cut, and the machines 
are speeded practically the same for every shop they go to, 
whereas each machine should be speeded to suit the average 
of the work that is to be done in a particular shop. 

After Mr. Barth had inspected that machine by means of 
these slide-rules, in two or three hours he was able to 
write the prescription for it, showing what should be done 
to have it right. And then, after he had given directions 
to have the machine speeded right, he went home and made a 
slide-rule by means of which, when he returned to the shop, 
he was able to show the workmen, the foreman, and the owner 
of that shop just how the machine should be run in various 
cases. Pieces of metal were put into the machine, similar to 
those which were ordinarily run in it, and his smallest gain 
was two and a half times as much, and his largest gain nine 
times as much work as had been done before. That is typical 
of what can be done in the average machine shop in this 
country. 

Why? Because the science of cutting metals is a true 
science, and because the machine shops of this country are 
run, we can almost say, without the slightest reference to 
that science. They are run by the old rule-of-thumb method 
just as they were fifty years ago. The science is almost 
neglected, and yet it is true science. 

I want to show you in a general way what that science 
is, so that you will understand why it is that a man who 
had never seen that particular machine, who had never seen 
that work, was able to compete with the workman who had 
been working for ten or twelve years on the same machine, 
who had the help of the foreman and of his superintendent, 
— for it was a well-run establishment; how a man who had 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 45 

never seen that work, but who was equipped with a knowl- 
edge of the science, was able to make it do from two and 
a half to nine times as much work as had been done before. 
I want to show you what it is, because that is the essence 
of Scientific Management, the development of a science which 
is of real use when applied with the cooperation of the man- 
agement to help the workmen. 

I spoke at the beginning about an ordinary piece-work 
fight which went on between a foreman who tried to do his 
duty and his men. At the end of that bitter fight of two or 
three years, I obtained permission from William Sellers, who 
was then the president of the Midvale Steel Works, to spend 
some money in educating the foreman of the Midvale Steel 
Works so that he should have at least a fraction of the knowl- 
edge of his men. And one of the subjects which we took up 
at that time, one in which the foreman needed most educa- 
tion, was the science of cutting metals, for metal-cutting was 
the whole work of the shop. And I believed, just as Mr. 
Sellers believed, just as almost every mechanic at that time 
believed, that the science of cutting metals consisted mainly 
if not entirely in finding the proper cutting angles of the tool. 

As you all know, each metal-cutting tool has, properly 
speaking, three cutting angles. It has the clearance angle, 
the side slope and the back slope. And it was my opinion, 
just as it was the opinion of almost every machinist that I 
knew, that if you could get the right combination of cutting 
angles you could cut steel and iron a great deal faster than 
we were then doing. So we started out to make a careful 
investigation as to what those cutting angles should be. 

We were exceedingly fortunate in having what hardly any 
shop in the United States had at that time, a very large boring 
room. We were then making locomotive tires. That was 
a considerable part of the business of the Midvale Steel 
Works at that time. We had a very large boring mill avail- 
able, sixty-six inches in diameter, and a very large uniform 
body of metal and tires weighing 2,000 pounds to put 
on it. So we had an opportunity to do what very few 



46 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

people had the opportunity to do. A sixty-six-inch diameter 
mill was at that time an unusually large one, so we put our 
tire on that mill and, having enough metal in that one piece 
to run three or four months, we could eliminate possible errors 
resulting from variability of the metal. At the end of six 
months we found that these angles which we supposed were 
of the greatest consequence counted for but little in the art 
of cutting metals. The two things which every machinist 
must know every time he puts a piece of work into his lathe, 
if he wishes to do it right, are the speed he should run his 
machine and the feed he should use in order to do his fastest 
work. Those two things sound very simple indeed. But 
to know them is to know the science of cutting metals. At 
the end of six months we found that the thing we were hunt- 
ing for, the question of angles, had very little bearing on the 
problem, but we had unearthed a gold mine of possible infor- 
mation. And when I was able to show Mr. Sellers the possi- 
bilities of knowledge ahead, he said at once, "Go right ahead, 
go on spending the money." And for practically twenty- 
six years, with here and there a year or two of intermission, 
went on that series of experiments to determine the laws of 
the science of cutting metals. It was found that there were 
twelve great variable elements which enter into metal-cutting 
operations. All that was done in twenty-six years was to 
investigate these twelve elements, to rind out the facts con- 
nected with them, to record and tabulate these facts, to reduce 
them to mathematical formulae, and finally to make those 
mathematical formulae applicable in everyday work. 

I know that it will seem almost inconceivable that such 
a time should be taken, and I want to show you how 
it is possible that it took that length of time. At various 
times in this investigation ten different machines were built 
and equipped and run for the purpose of determining the 
various elements of this science. While we were at the Mid- 
vale Steel Works we had no trouble at all, because they knew 
the value of the elements which we were studying; they knew 
the commercial value of them; but after we left there our 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 47 

only means of continuing these experiments was to give the 
information which we had up to date in payment to any 
one who would build us a machine and furnish the labor and 
materials to continue the investigation. So most of these 
ten different machines were built in that way by men who 
were willing and anxious to trade their money, in the shape 
of new equipment, new forgings, new castings, and new labor, 
for the knowledge that had been obtained from previous 
experiments. 

Let me briefly call your attention to some of the variable 
elements. I will not bother you with all the twelve, but I 
want to let you see enough of them to appreciate what I mean 
by this science of cutting metals. Investigations similar to 
this are bound to be made in every industry in this country, 
scientific investigations of those elements which go to make 
up the science, whatever that science is; that is the reason 
why I am dwelling on it. It is not an isolated case. It is 
perhaps the longest-drawn-out investigation that has been 
made, but it is simply typical of what is bound to take place 
in every industry. 

One of the first discoveries which we made — and it seems 
an exceedingly simple one — was that if you throw a stream 
of water on the chip and tool at the point at which the shaving 
of iron is being cut of! from the forging, you can increase your 
cutting speed 40 per cent. You have a 40 per cent gain 
just by doing that little thing alone. That we found out 
within the first six months. Mr. Sellers had the courage of 
his convictions; he did not believe it at first, but when we 
proved to him that it was true, he tore down the old shop and 
replaced it with another so as to get that 40 per cent 
increase in the cutting speed. He built a shop with water 
drains extending under the floor to carry off the water with 
which the tools were cooled to a central settling tank; from 
there it was pumped up again to a tank in the roof and carried 
from there through proper piping to every tool, so that the 
workman did not need to spend much time in adjusting a 
stream which would flow on to any tool in any position. He 



48 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

was a broad enough man to see that it paid him to build a 
new shop to get that 40 per cent. 

Now our competitors came right to the Midvale Steel 
Works without any hesitation. They were invited to come 
there, and in twenty years just one competitor used that 
knowledge and built a shop in which it was possible to throw 
a heavy stream of water on the tools, and that was a shop 
started by men who had left the Midvale Steel Works and 
who knew enough to do this. That shows the slowness of 
men, in that trade at least, to take advantage of a 40 per 
cent gain in cutting. 

That is one of the twelve elements, a very simple one, the 
simplest of all. Let me show you one or two more. 

There is the old diamond-point tool, used when I was a 
boy in practically all shops throughout the country. One of 
the first suggestions that I had for an experiment was from 
Mr. John Bancroft, now one of the ablest engineers in the 
country. He suggested that I try the effect of using a round- 
nose tool, with a round cutting-edge. Hardly a single piece 
of original work was done by us in Scientific Management. 
Everything that we have has come from the suggestion of 
some one else. There is no originality about Scientific Manage- 
ment. And, gentlemen, I am proud of it; I am not ashamed 
of it, because the man who thinks he can place his originality 
against the world's evolution, against the combined knowledge 
of the world, is pretty poor stuff. 

Now, that diamond-point tool was almost universally used 
at that time, and I do not believe there is one mechanic in 
fifty now who knows why it was used. It was used because 
in the primitive shops, such as the one in which I served my 
apprenticeship, we all had to make and dress our own tools. 
There was no tool dresser. We would heat the metal, lay it on 
the edge of the anvil one way and ask a friend to hit it a crack, 
and then turn it around and repeat the process, and simply 
turning it and hitting it with the sledge would give it the dia- 
mond point. That is the only reason why a tool of that shape 
was in use. It was a tradition. It had no scientific basis. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 49 

After a sufficient number of experiments, we found that a 
round-nose tool was far superior to a diamond-point tool, 
but it took a long time after we made that discovery before 
we found what kind of a round-nose tool. It took years 
before we were through with the experiment to determine 
what curve was the best when all things were considered, 
because there are many considerations which come in. There 
is the speed, the convenience of handling, the kind of work 
to be done, and so on. 

Having, then, decided that a round-nose tool was the 
best, we had to make another investigation. If you have a 
light cut taken on your tool in one case, a heavy cut in another, 
and a still heavier one in another, it is a matter of plain com- 
mon sense that you could of course in one case run a very 
much higher cutting-speed than in another. How fast can 
you run? That is a question for accurate scientific investi- 
gation. The investigation, simply to determine that fact, 
took altogether, I think, as much as two years. And even 
after we had determined the facts, it was many years before 
we finally got the proper mathematical expression of those 
facts. That is a totally different matter. Before we had 
reduced our knowledge to a true mathematical formula which 
could be worked with, it was a question of years. 

The next investigation, perhaps the most spectacular of 
all, was to answer the question, what is the effect of the 
chemical composition of the tool and its best treatment? 
The old-fashioned tools when I served my apprenticeship 
were all made of carbon steel. But it has been found that 
by putting tungsten in those tools one can make them with- 
stand a higher amount of heat and still not lose their cutting- 
edge. A part, then, of the study of the art or science of 
cutting metals was to make a thorough, scientific investiga- 
tion of the possibilities of alloy steel, not only with the new 
metal tungsten, but with other alloys which presented possi- 
bilities; so we varied the quantities of tungsten, chromium, 
molybdenum and one or two other elements, until at the end 
of three years of continuous experimenting the modern high- 



50 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

speed steel was developed; that is, a certain kind of steel 
which when heated in a certain revolutionary way would 
enable you to run, to be accurate, just seven times as fast 
as with the carbon steel. The discovery of high-speed steel 
and its treatment was the result of investigations. Most 
people think it was a mere accident, that some fools were 
fooling around and by accident discovered this thing; but I 
assure you three or four years of hard study and investigation 
by chemists and metallurgists working according to the most 
scientific methods were required. In these various experi- 
ments $200,000 were spent and from 800,000 to 1,000,000 
pounds of metal were cut up into chips. 

Perhaps the most difficult phase of the experiments was 
getting steel of uniform hardness for experimental purposes. 
To carry on our elaborate experiments when high-speed steel 
came in, we had to have at least 20,000 pounds of metal to 
experiment on, and it is almost impossible to get 20,000 
pounds which are uniform. We finally solved it and obtained 
metal which was sufficiently uniform by using exactly the 
same processes which are used in making the great high- 
power cannon for the army and navy. That is, we forged 
metal under a forging-press, and then oil-tempered and 
annealed it until we got a uniform body of metal. The 
tempering and annealing resulted in making the steel finer 
and finer and making all the crystallized structure uniform. 

I want to explain why twenty-six years were necessary to 
carry out these experiments. Time after time we would 
have to throw away six months' work because eleven of these 
elements had slipped up while we were experimenting with 
the twelfth. If hard spots appeared in the steel, a whole 
line of experiments was thrown out and we would have to 
get a new forging and start all over again. It was the diffi- 
culty of that sort of thing, holding eleven elements constant 
while we were getting the twelfth, which made that problem 
as difficult as it was. When those experiments had first 
been reduced to facts, and then the facts to diagrams, and 
then curves drawn through the diagrams and finally mathe- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 51 

matical formulae made to fit those diagrams, then we were on 
the road towards the development of a science. We finally 
developed twelve formulae to represent the twelve variables, 
of which this is a specimen: 

V= H^ 

F 0.665 f 4? D \ 0.2373+ ~^ 



When one has a lot of mathematical formulas of that sort, 
it seems at first the idea of a lunatic to imagine that any one 
could get any use out of them. That is, all of our friends, 
when they found that our experiments were resulting in such 
formulae as these, said, " Why, you are nothing but rank crazy; 
you will never be able to use these things." And a great work, 
greater than the experiments which gave us these formulae, was 
the work of giving these formulae a form which would make 
them usable for the ordinary machinist. We kept mathema- 
ticians working on that problem for about eighteen years. 

Now you must realize that a mathematical problem with 
twelve variables is a big thing. During that time we went 
to the great mathematicians in the country, the professors 
in our universities, and offered them any price to solve that 
problem for us. Not one of them would touch it; they all 
said, "You can solve a problem with four variables if you 
have your four equations, possibly; beyond that it is an 
indeterminate problem, and it is all nonsense thinking of 
getting a mathematical solution for it." I dare say you 
people think I am trying to prove that Mr. Barth and Mr. 
Gantt and these other gentlemen are very remarkable men. 
Nothing of the kind. This is the point I want to make: that 
it is a long, tedious operation to solve a problem of that sort, 
or to solve any of the intricate problems connected with the 
mechanic arts, or those that are going to arise in any art. 
It is a difficult thing to do. But very ordinary men with 
ordinary equipment can solve and make useful any problem, 
I do not care how difficult it is, if they will only give the time 
and the money and the patience; they will solve it. 



52 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

At the end of eighteen years these men had devised a little 
machine, a slide-rule, which solves the problem with twelve 
independent variables in about twenty seconds. That is 
put into the hands of an ordinary lathe man who knows 
nothing about mathematics, and by means of it that man 
determines under which one of 800 or 900 conditions 
pertaining to the particular job he will do his fastest 
work. It was for that reason that Mr. Barth, with his slide- 
rule, was able to more than compete with the mechanic who 
had spent twelve years in the old-fashioned rule-of-thumb 
way of cutting a particular kind of metal on his particular 
kind of machine; just for that reason, because the amount 
of knowledge which that machinist needed to have in order 
to solve that problem was utterly impossible for any one to 
have. 

What I am trying to show you is, that the more intelligent 
the high-class mechanic the more he needs the help of the 
man with the theoretical knowledge; he must have it even 
more than the ordinary laborer must have it. And that is 
why this cooperation, in which the management does one part 
of the work and the workman another, must accomplish 
overwhelmingly more work in all cases than the old method 
of leaving to the workman both the determining how and 
the performance. 

There is just one thing more that I want to say; some- 
thing that I am sure you are all thinking of. I find this 
question in the mind of every one who is considering Scientific 
Management. It may be that this combination of the science 
and the workman turns out more work than before, but 
doesn't it make a wooden man out of the workman? Doesn't 
it make him a machine? Doesn't it reduce him to the level 
of an implement? 

I want to give one or two answers to that. The first 
is this: that under the new system every single working- 
man is raised up, is developed, is taught, so that he can do a 
higher, a better, and a more interesting class of work than 
he could before. The ordinary laborer is taught to run the 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 53 

drill-press in the machine shop; the drill-press hand becomes 
a lathe hand; the lathe hand becomes a tool maker, the tool 
maker — now I am speaking of types of men, you under- 
stand, not literally — the tool maker becomes one of the 
teachers. He is the man in the planning room. He is the 
man who makes up this one out of three who is transferred 
to the management side, so that the best workmen, who before 
would have remained workmen, are on the management side 
and become teachers and helpers of the other workmen. I 
want to emphasize the brotherly feeling which exists under 
Scientific Management. It is no longer a case of master and 
men, as under the old system, but it is a case of one friend 
helping another and each fellow doing the kind of work that 
he is best fitted for. You boys have here in the college 
one pretty good piece of Scientific. Management, and that is 
football, — a good case of cooperation, training and teaching, 
and that is the fine feature about football, that it does enforce 
a fine method of friendly cooperation. 

Does this make workmen into wooden men? Let us answer 
the second question. I have said, and I repeat, that no one 
claims any originality for Scientific Management; it was all 
done before. I do not know of a person who claims any 
originality for it whatever. It has simply taken what other 
people were doing before. Long before we had any develop- 
ment of Scientific Management, there was in existence a far 
finer case of Scientific Management than we have ever suc- 
ceeded in developing. The finest mechanic in the world had 
developed Scientific Management long before we touched it 
or ever dreamed of it. You all know him, every one of you; 
he is the modern surgeon. In his operations five or six men 
cooperate, each one doing in turn just what he should do. 
How does that finest mechanic teach his apprentices? Do 
you suppose that when the young surgeons come to their 
teachers, the skilled surgeons, they are told first of all: "Now, 
boys, what we want first is your initiative; we want you to 
use your brains and originality to develop the best methods 
of doing surgical work. Of course you know we do have our 



54 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

own ways of performing these operations, but don't let that 
hamper you for one instant in your work. What we want 
is your originality and your initiative. Of course you know, 
for example, when we are amputating a leg and come to the 
bone, we take a saw and cut the bone off. Don't let that dis- 
turb you for a minute ; if you like it better, take an axe, take 
a hatchet, anything you please; what we want is originality. 
What we want of all things is originality on your part." 

Now that surgeon says to his apprentices just what we say 
to our apprentices under Scientific Management. He says: 
"Not on your life. We want your originality, but we want 
you to invent upward and not downward. We do not want 
any of your originality until you know the best method 
of doing work that we know, the best method that is now 
known to modern surgery. So you just get busy and learn 
the best method that is known to date under modern surgery; 
then, when you have got to the top by the present method, 
invent upward; then use your originality." 

That is exactly what we say to our men. We say, "We 
do not know the best; we are sure that within two or three 
years a better method will be developed than we know of; 
but what we know is the result of a long series of experi- 
ments and careful study of every element connected with 
shop practice; these standards that He before you are the 
results of these studies. We ask you to learn how to use 
these standards as they are, and after that, the moment any 
man sees an improved standard, a better way of doing any- 
thing than we are doing, come to us with it; your suggestion 
will not only be welcome but we will join you in making a 
carefully tried experiment, which will satisfy both you and us 
and any other man that your improvement is or is not better 
than anything before. If that experiment shows that your 
method is better than ours, your method will become our 
method and every one of us will adopt that method until 
somebody gets a better one." 

In that way you are able to apply a true science to mechan- 
ical work, and only in that way. If you allow each man to 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 55 

do his own way, just exactly as he pleases, without any regard 
to science, science melts right away. You must have stand- 
ards. We get some of our greatest improvements from the 
workmen in that way. The workmen, instead of holding 
back, are eager to make suggestions. When one is adopted 
it is named after the man who suggested it, and he is given a 
premium for having developed a new standard. So in that 
way we get the finest kind of team work, we have true 
cooperation, and our method, instead of inventing things that 
were out of date forty years ago, leads on always to some- 
thing better than has been known before. 



FRIDAY FORENOON, OCTOBER THE THIRTEENTH 

Chairman, BENJAMIN A. KIMBALL 

President of the Concord and Montreal Railroad, and President 
of The Mechanicks National Bank, Concord, N. H. 



SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
THE LABORER 

INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN 

Gentlemen of this Conference and Invited Guests: 

WE had hoped to have with us to preside at this 
session of the conference, Mr. Edward Tuck, of 
Paris and New York, founder of the Amos Tuck 
School of Administration and Finance. Pressing engage- 
ments prevented Mr. Tuck's attendance here, and I have 
been requested to fill his place so far as I am able. 

It is most fitting that this, the first organized conference 
on the question of Scientific Management, should be held 
in the halls of Dartmouth, whose history is linked so inti- 
mately with the development of this nation. The decision 
in the famous Dartmouth College case, rendered by the 
Supreme Court of the United States more than ninety years 
ago, established a precedent under which the modern corpora- 
tion has developed, and, whatever the evils that have attended 
the growth of those great corporations, they have been instru- 
ments of incalculable value in securing cooperation in the 
commercial and industrial development of the United States. 
The name of Dartmouth College has therefore been closely 
identified with the firm establishment of the idea of nationality 
and the preservation of the Union, and with it the amazing 
prosperity of the country. 

It now appears that one of the great questions facing the 
progressive business manager of today, and the question to 
which every manufacturer and financier of industrial and cor- 
porate management must give close study and attention, is 
that of more economical production; and we are assembled 

59 



60 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

here to consider a phase of this great problem. In our con- 
sideration of the principles of Scientific Management, we 
must not overlook the status of the employee. I take great 
pleasure in introducing to you Mr. Henry L. Gantt, Con- 
sulting Engineer, of New York City, who will adress us upon 
"The Task and The Day's Work." 



THE TASK AND THE DAY'S WORK 

By HENRY L. GANTT 

Consulting Engineer, New York 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

IT is very important that we have a clear general under- 
standing of the subject before going into details, and 
I wish to refer to a point brought out by Mr. Taylor 
last night; namely, that the work we are doing has not as its 
aim the development of a series of expedients to promote effi- 
ciency. We are trying as far as we can to solve the industrial 
problem, which is the greatest problem before the country 
today. In this connection, I wish to say that the circular 
announcing this conference referred to several of us who 
were to speak as " efficiency engineers." To me the term 
"engineer" has always stood for a man whose business it is 
to utilize efficiently the materials and forces of nature; and 
such was the conception of the late Dr. R. H. Thurston, 
who for many years was one of the leaders of engineering 
thought in this country. As first president of the Ameri- 
can Society of Mechanical Engineers, as Professor of Engi- 
neering at Stevens Institute, and later as Director of Sibley 
College — the great engineering school of Cornell University 
— he continually gave expression to this idea. Having been 
brought up in that school, I cannot accept for myself the 
title "Efficiency Engineer," as it seems to imply that there 
are engineers who are not striving for the promotion of 
efficiency. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 61 

The fact that, until recently, the engineer has confined his 
efforts to inanimate forces and materials does not seem to 
me to justify an extension of title when he includes in his 
work the promotion of efficiency in the field of human effort. 
While my feeling on this subject is very strong, it is neces- 
sarily only my personal feeling, and there may be others who 
have a different conception of the functions of the engineer. 
Such people are, of course, equally entitled to their own 
opinions on this subject. 

About fifteen years ago, the financiers of this country dis- 
covered a new and seemingly important principle. They 
realized that, in many cases at least, large factories were 
making a greater percentage of profit than small ones, and 
conceived the idea of uniting the small ones under one system 
of management. By this move they certainly did give the 
small factories a better financial standing, at the same time 
reducing what might be called the financial, or business, 
expense. 

By this they also reduced competition and decreased the 
cost of selling, which has always been a large element of 
expense. Under those conditions business prospered rapidly, 
for there was in many cases undoubtedly a reduction in cost. 
The illustrated magazines were filled with portraits of the 
captains of industry who had effected these combinations, 
and it was freely predicted that the economies to be obtained 
were so great that it would be a question of time only before 
Europe would be flooded with American goods. 

The formation of consolidations, or trusts, in manufacturing, 
and of great systems in railroading, went on at a rapid rate. 
The economies that were produced by these methods, together 
with the fact that by the elimination of competition selling 
prices were kept up, enabled many such combinations to 
pay dividends on stock which had originally represented 
little or no value. 

The unprecedented prosperity which followed the intro- 
duction of these methods was undoubtedly caused in a large 
measure by them, and the financier was justly regarded as 



62 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

having done much to promote the prosperity of the country. 
Our internal trade grew at an astounding rate, but the Ameri- 
can invasion of Europe did not materialize; and it was not 
very long before we began to hear complaints of the increasing 
inefficiency of labor. Wages began to rise, but the output 
of the workman did not rise correspondingly. The financier 
had undoubtedly effected economies in those parts of business 
directly under his control, but had not succeeded in producing 
a similar effect on those with which he did not come in direct 
contact. 

As a matter of fact, while the financier had been forming 
his great combinations of manufacturing interests and rail- 
roads, with the effect, at least as far as the public was con- 
cerned, of upholding prices, the workmen had gone him one 
better. By their unions not only have they upheld the price 
of their labor, but in many cases markedly increased it, with- 
out rendering any more service than formerly; the employers, 
in many cases, say less. 

Under these conditions, the projected invasion of Europe 
seems to have been postponed indefinitely, and the continually 
increasing cost of living in this country seems to indicate that 
we need something more than able financiering to round out 
our theory of Industrial Economy. While this fact is recog- 
nized by all, it is not so easy to specify exactly what is wrong 
or how it is to be corrected. Cooperation among employers 
to uphold the prices of their products has been so successful, 
that it is scarcely to be wondered at that the workmen should 
adopt the same tactics. 

On this subject, Adam Smith, in his famous book, An 
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 
nearly 140 years ago wrote as follows: 

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much 
of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby 
lessening the sale of goods at home and abroad. They say 
nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are 
silent with regard to the pernicious effect of their own gains. 
They complain only of those of other people." 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 63 

This statement made so long ago is just as applicable to 
the conditions of today, and admonishes us in approaching 
our problem to do so with an open mind and not from a 
partizan standpoint, for a solution cannot be permanent if 
it benefits one class exclusively. 

Relative to the increasing inefficiency of labor, while the 
manager cannot be held responsible for the inefficiency he 
finds, he certainly is responsible if he allows it to increase. 
It therefore seems that the problem before us is one of 
management, and if the methods now generally in vogue do 
not accomplish the desired result, they must be modified; 
and our inquiry must be directed towards finding if possible 
some indication as to the form this modification must take. 

The Task Idea. In studying a problem it is best to con- 
sider first the simplest form in which that problem presents 
itself, and one if possible in which the issues are perfectly 
clear to all. A good example for our purpose is to study the 
methods by which a child is taught to perform a simple opera- 
tion. The invariable method is to explain to the child as 
clearly as possible what is wanted, and then to set a task for 
it to accomplish. It may be noted that the accomplishment 
of the task is rendered much easier for both the child and the 
parent, if a suitable reward is offered for the proper perform- 
ance. As a matter of fact, setting tasks and rewarding 
performance is the standard method of teaching and train- 
ing children. The schoolmaster invariably sets tasks, and, 
while they are not always performed as well as he wishes, he 
gets far more done than if he had not set them. The college 
professor finds the task his most effective instrument in get- 
ting work out of his students, and, when we in our personal 
work have something strenuous or disagreeable to accomplish, 
it is not infrequently that we utilize the same idea to help 
ourselves, and it does it. 

The inducement to perform the task is always some bene- 
fit or reward. It may not always be so immediate as the 
lump of sugar the child gets, but the work is still done for 
some reward, immediate or prospective. Further, it is a 



64 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

well-acknowledged fact that to work at a task, which we 
recognize as being within our power to accomplish, without 
overexerting ourselves, is less tiring and far more pleasant 
than to work along at the same rate with no special goal 
ahead. 

It is simply the difference between working with an object, 
and without one. The hunter who enjoys following the trail 
of the moose, day after day, through snow and bitter cold 
weather, would find the same traveling very disagreeable 
except for the task he has set himself. To the uninitiated, 
golf seems a very inane sort of game, but its devotees work 
at it with tremendous energy just for the satisfaction of 
reducing their score a few strokes. As they become more 
proficient, they become more enthusiastic, for, having per- 
formed one task, there is always one just a little harder to 
work at. A consideration of this subject will convince us 
that in the vast majority of people there readily springs up 
the desire to do something specific if the opportunity offers, 
and if an adequate reward can be obtained for doing it. 

A Natural Method. The idea of setting for each worker 
a task with a bonus for its accomplishment seems, then, to 
be in accord with human nature, and hence the proper foun- 
dation of a system of management. Our problem, then, is to 
find out how to set a proper task and what the reward should 
be for its accomplishment. 

The ideal industrial community would be one in which 
every member should have his proper daily task and receive 
a corresponding reward. Such a community would represent 
the condition of which Kipling says: 

" We shall work for an age at a sitting 
And never be tired at all." 

This is what Scientific Management in its best develop- 
ment aims to accomplish, for it aims to assign to each, from 
the highest to the lowest, a definite task each day, and to 
secure to every individual such a reward as will make his task 
not only acceptable, but agreeable and pleasant. Whatever 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 65 

we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot 
drive people; we must go with the current. 

The greatest obstacles to the introduction of this method 
have not in the past been the workmen, but the foremen 
and others in authority. Those offering most objection 
have, as a rule, either not understood what was being 
done, or have felt their inability to hold their jobs if they 
were asked to perform them in accordance with the high 
standards set. Frequently, the higher they are in authority 
the less they can see that they should have a task set for them. 
Such a system bears hardest on those who hold their jobs by 
pull or bluff, and it is from them that we should expect the 
greatest opposition. In this we are not disappointed. In fact, 
there is only one class that opposes us more strongly, and 
that is the class which is using official position for private 
gain. Such people will often commit serious crimes in an 
attempt to prevent the exposure of their irregularities, and 
no concern should, therefore, undertake the installation of 
these methods, unless with the avowed purpose of eliminating 
all kinds of graft and special privileges. 

Schedules as Tasks. The task idea is really so common 
that we do not recognize it. Every railroad schedule consists 
of a series of tasks, and in the manufacture of such articles 
as sewing machines, typewriters and locomotives, the task 
idea is illustrated by the schedules according to which the 
various parts are started on their way through the different 
departments, and day by day make such progress as will 
bring them to the erecting shop at the proper time to be 
incorporated into the finished machine without delay. 

In the case of locomotives, in particular, the task idea is 
specifically illustrated by the dates of shipment set, often 
months ahead, which are lived up to in a very remarkable 
manner. When the shipping date of a locomotive has been 
set, there has also been set the time when every piece 
must start on its course through the shops to arrive at the 
appointed time in the erecting shop. Inasmuch as this work 
has been done over and over again, all the principal men in 



66 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

the works know by heart the schedules of all the parts they 
are concerned with, and what their tasks are. 

Wherever the work is one of general character, this con- 
dition exists, for each foreman, and in many cases the various 
workmen, soon learn the proper routes and time-schedules of 
the parts they are concerned with. 

The grand task of shipping at a predetermined date, then, 
consists of the sum of those detail tasks, each of which must 
be performed properly and in the proper sequence, if the 
shipping date is to be lived up to. 

Scheduling Miscellaneous Work. Where the work is 
miscellaneous in character, however, the task of having each 
part go through the proper sequence of operations and arrive 
at the erecting shop in the order wanted, is not so easy. As a 
matter of fact, it is the feeling of the writer that the inability 
to get miscellaneous work through a shop on time, and the 
delays caused thereby, is often the source of as much expense 
as inefficient work on the part of the operative. 

In a small shop one capable man can often so plan miscel- 
laneous work, and keep account of it in his head, that but 
little expense is incurred from delays or interferences; but in 
the large shops of today, and especially in plants consisting 
of several shops, such a thing is quite impossible; and the 
larger the shop or plant the greater the expense that arises 
from this source. This, then, is the greatest and most im- 
portant task to be performed in any works, and it is one for 
which the management is solely responsible. To go into 
details of how such a task is performed would be impossible 
in the short time at my disposal. Suffice it to say, however, 
that when a start has been made and each foreman receives 
each day a list of jobs to be done that day, the general effi- 
ciency of the works is much increased, though nothing what- 
ever has been done to increase the efficiency of the individual 
workman. Although such an order of work is of great assist- 
ance to the foreman, its usefulness increases rapidly as the 
work is so planned as to avoid interferences and to have all 
materials and appliances ready for the workman in advance 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 67 

With this result the efficiency of the individual increases, and 
unless his inefficiency is very flagrant, it is far better to solve 
this general problem first and to take up the efficiency of the 
workman later, except to the extent of keeping a daily record 
of his work; for when the large problem is solved, every step 
made with the individual counts for all it is worth, which is 
not always the case when work is done in the wrong sequence 
or by an inferior method. 

What I have said has so often proved itself of value, that 
anybody who gives the subject any thought should recognize 
the importance of it. I had a case a few years ago where 
there was a very good foreman of a certain shop, — I say 
he was good because he intended to do the right thing and he 
was bright and he knew how to do the work. But he had 
one failing, a very bad memory. He would promise anything 
and never perform it. It was not because he did not want 
to do it, — he would always forget. He honestly forgot. 
And when we gave him a list of the work in the order in 
which it was wanted, and presented him each day a list of 
the work he was to do next, he was perfectly delighted. 

I have had similar cases a number of times, and I have 
always been able in this way to increase the efficiency of the 
foreman and of the workmen. In one case which I could cite, 
I went to a large shop where I was told that certain foremen 
were useless; there was one in particular whom they would 
have to get rid of. Well, we did not discuss that question. 
We found that he was always behind in his work, because he 
was always doing the wrong thing first. We went to work 
to straighten out what he should do and gave him each day 
a list of the work he was to do that day. In a short time 
he caught up with his work, and some months later he came 
to the superintendent of the shop and said, "There is some- 
thing wrong in this shop." The superintendent asked, 
"What is the matter?" "I don't know," said the foreman; 
"but there is something wrong in this shop." "Well, what 
is it, if it is wrong?" "Well," the foreman replied, "nobody 
has been chasing me about my work for three days." That 



68 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

happened several years ago, and the man is still there as 
foreman. 

Having solved our large problem of scheduling each part 
through the works, and having devised means for knowing 
each day whether our schedules are lived up to or not, we 
come to what most people consider the real problem, that of 
setting up a task for the workman. 

I find many shops have a very nice schedule system; they 
plan their work beautifully, — at least, it looks very pretty 
on paper, but they have no means of finding out whether 
those schedules are lived up to or not. Usually they are not. 
I have been through shops where the superintendent or man- 
ager told me he had a fine system of management, and having 
described his whole system to me, turned me over to a sub- 
ordinate to take me around and see how it was working. It 
has been very seldom when I have found the system working 
the way the superintendent said it was. He had planned it 
and had given his orders, but when I got out into the shop 
and asked questions, I found that the foremen and the people 
charged with carrying out this system said, "We found we 
couldn't do it just that way and we have done it this way." 
One dear old man whom I knew very well was very proud 
of his shop system. He spent quite a time one day showing 
it to me, and then turned me over to one of his subordinates 
to be shown the details of anything I wanted to see. There 
was absolutely nothing going as he said it was going. The 
force had not argued with him; they had just gone on and 
done things in their own way. He had this beautiful sys- 
tem all on paper. It looked to me pretty complicated, but 
he thought it was fine. Everybody was going on just the 
same as before, and he was ignorant of the fact. They never 
brought it up to him ; they got things out the best way they 
could, made whatever excuses were necessary and got through. 

With regard to the subject of tasks it may be said that it 
is only in those cases where the number of routes is small 
and the sequence of operations fixed, that proper tasks can 
be set for the workman before the solution of the general 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 69 

problem. I have been working at one plant for a year and 
a half where they had a pretty good system of management, 
and we have not set a task yet. We have been straightening 
out their routes. We have been fixing it so that the work 
should go through the shop in the order wanted and not by 
the snap judgment of some individual. As soon as we have 
got into the various rooms, — in many cases rooms which 
were crowded and where work was stacked all round the 
room — and begun to plan the work so as to have it done in 
proper sequence and without delay, congestion has disap- 
peared. That has happened in so many cases that it cannot 
be attributed to accident. In one case which I could cite, 
the shop was filled with small boxes of little pieces that 
were in process. There were a great many of those boxes. 
I said, "The first thing, gentlemen, is to get some racks made 
and classify these boxes according to the operation which is 
next to be performed on the pieces." They saw they had a 
great many boxes there and they built a corresponding 
number of racks. When they got this work classified and 
began to lay it out, they found they had many more racks 
than they needed. The work kept moving instead of 
standing there. 

I find in many factories that the amount of work in 
process, moving in a desultory way through the factory, is 
two or three times as great as there is any necessity for, if 
its course were properly planned. It not only takes up fac- 
tory space, but it ties up a large amount of capital where 
work is not properly planned. The ordinary stock-keeper or 
foreman always wants to give himself about two or three 
times as much time as is needed to get the work done. He 
always expects that when a man promises to give him some- 
thing next Monday, it will be Monday week or Monday two 
weeks before he will get it. And that is true if the planning 
of that work is left to a series of foremen. There are many 
reasons why that has to be so. It is impracticable to do it 
in any other way. If, however, all that planning is done 
from one central headquarters, and each man knows how 



70 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

much he has to accomplish, and it is put up to him in such 
a way that he can accomplish it, it gets through pretty 
regularly. 

To send a clerk into a shop to time workmen with a stop- 
watch and set rates, or tasks, naturally arouses the opposition 
of the workmen; and while I have no doubt that it has been 
possible in many cases to get more work by so doing, I have 
no doubt, also, that its effect on the industrial conditions of 
the country at large has been decidedly detrimental. It 
creates opposition, and justly. 

As I said before, working at tasks is not a hardship, but a 
pleasure, if they are properly set and adequately rewarded. 
Before task-setting can be carried on satisfactorily, the work- 
men must be convinced that we are not approaching them 
with a scheme for driving, but with one by which they will 
be benefited. They must be satisfied, too, that the man who 
is going to study their work knows what he is doing. He 
should not be a clerk picked up at random and given a stop- 
watch; he should be a man who knows what the problem is 
and how to solve it. 

Preparation for Task-setting. Among the steps to be 
taken before setting a task are ; to get all machines and appli- 
ances in proper order, to establish a proper tool- room where 
suitable tools can be obtained for work, to arrange to supply 
the workmen with material in the order wanted, to plan work 
so that it is very seldom that one job shall be stopped to make 
way for another. In other words, before we begin the prob- 
lem of task-setting for the individual, we should arrange con- 
ditions so that he can work to the best advantage, with proper 
ventilation and a comfortable temperature. These condi- 
tions alone will materially increase his output, for petty 
annoyance of any kind reduces his efficiency. If the work 
requires mechanical skill or ability, the problem should be 
studied by the most capable mechanic available, and specific 
instructions set, showing the best way to do the work and the 
time required to do it. If necessary, and it usually is, the 
investigator and task-setter should now turn instructor and 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 71 

show the workmen how to do the work, and the task should 
be such that a good workman can readily learn to perform 
it. If the task is set in this manner by a man in whose 
ability and honesty the workman has confidence, I have but 
little difficulty getting the task-work started, provided a 
proper bonus is offered. 

This leads to the question, What is a proper bonus? The 
reply is, that it is such a bonus as will make the workman feel 
that he is fully compensated for any extra exertion he puts 
forth. 

Judged from this point of view, it is evident that the bonus 
depends upon the severity of the work. It varies, as a rule, 
from 20 per cent to 50 per cent of the day-rate. Task- work 
does not necessarily mean more severe work, but it does 
mean more continuous work, and work under more favorable 
conditions, which always produces greater efficiency. 

The attempt to set a task so severe that very few people 
can be taught to perform it, is of no advantage from any 
standpoint, for few will continue to strive for a reward which 
they cannot reach. I have seen employers who were much 
surprised that they did not get an increased output where 
they had set a reward for it, — surprised that the reward was 
being earned by one or two only out of fifty or sixty. When 
a workman has made up his mind that the reward is beyond 
him, it has no effect. 

Performing the Tasks. Having set a task, the responsi- 
bility for the performance does not rest upon the workman 
alone, but must be shared by the instructor, who must see 
that the conditions under which the task was set are main- 
tained. That is an essential difference between our form of 
work and the ordinary form of piece-work. The ordinary 
form of piece-work is to fix a piece-rate, and then let anybody 
do it, if he can; if he cannot, he gets out. We believe that 
it is our duty to show the man how to do it, and to do what- 
ever we can to help him perform his task. To complete the 
scheme, therefore, every case of lost bonus must be investi- 
gated and the reason determined. Such investigations, when 



72 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

the case is that of a man who has learned the work, usually 
lead to the discovery of slightly defective material, imperfect 
tools, machine out of order, or any one of a large number of 
things that might hamper the output considerably, but which 
would not be noticed unless a special search was made for 
them. Thus, the setting of a proper task for a workman also 
imposes obligations on, or sets tasks for, the management, with 
the invariable result of a better and cheaper product. 

Task- work in a Machine Shop. The setting of machine- 
shop tasks is today quite different from what it was ten years 
ago. At that time machine operations took a relatively long 
time, and the time between operations was of much less 
importance. Today, when machine operations are, as a 
rule, three times as fast, the time of changing jobs has become 
three times as important, and to plan our work so that there 
will be no time lost in going from one job to another has 
become a far greater factor. For each machine-tool operative 
today, there has to be planned nearly three times as much 
work as formerly, and necessarily the supervising force 
must be much greater. It is this increase in machine-tool 
capacity which has induced me to lay emphasis on the general 
scheduling of work, so that no more time than necessary 
shall be taken in changing jobs. 

The ratio between the number of men actually engaged on 
mechanical work and those engaged in supervising or prepar- 
ing work must necessarily be quite different from what it 
was before the advent of high-speed steel and methods of 
instruction and task-setting. 

Task-setting in every kind of shop is similar, and although 
we do not have high-speed steel to reduce time in non-metal- 
working shops, we have, in many cases, something similar, 
the benefit of which is never fully realized until a proper and 
detailed study is made of the possibilities. 

I could give numerous illustrations of this. For instance, 
in the bleaching of cloth there are several processes, one of 
which is to subject the cloth to the action of an acid. I found 
a variety of opinion in the plant in which I first worked, as 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 73 

to how long the cloth should be subjected to this treatment. 
They told me that they thought an hour was necessary. By 
watching their performances, I found that, while the man who 
told me that an hour was necessary usually subjected his cloth 
to the action of the acid for an hour, he sometimes allowed 
it to stay in the acid for several hours and sometimes only 
five minutes. That, of course, opened a field for investigation. 
He also told me how strong the acid should be, and insisted 
that he always kept it at that strength. We secured samples 
of his solution at different times and found that the strength 
varied from about 1 per cent to 7 per cent. That also opened 
up a line of study. We found but little difference between 
cloth which had been acted upon five minutes and that which 
had been acted upon for an hour. As a result of our studies, 
we found the strength of acid needed and the time the cloth 
should remain subjected to it. It had been the practice to 
pile the cloth in a series of piles, and when it had remained 
long enough in these piles, to sew the cloth together again 
and to pull it through the subsequent solutions. This 
method necessitated the sewing of the top of the second pile 
to the bottom of the first. As this process was usually 
repeated several times in the bleaching, it is easily seen that 
the pieces of cloth naturally became pretty thoroughly 
" shuffled " by the time the bleaching was completed. If the 
rope contained several kinds of goods, as was usually the case, 
the kinds were often so thoroughly mixed that they could not 
be gathered together again, except with much care and labor. 
The result was that people frequently did not get all of the 
goods that they sent to the bleachery, but they got somebody's 
else, which was sometimes as good, and sometimes not. 

The discovery that those goods could be treated in a few 
minutes enabled us to make a remarkable change in the work 
and eliminate a great deal of labor, besides keeping all the 
goods in exactly the order they went in. We devised a 
machine which automatically turns upward the leading end 
of a pile of goods formed in it. From this leading end the 
goods are pulled off at exactly the same speed at which they 



74 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

are added to the pile. Thus all goods remain in the pile 
exactly the same length of time and are treated exactly 
alike, with the result of a uniformity of bleach previously 
impossible of attainment. 

The length of time the goods remain in the pile is gov- 
erned by the desire of the bleacher and is limited by the 
size of the machine. Several machines may be placed in 
series if it is desired to have the time very long. 

By means of this machine it has been possible to bleach a 
number of small lots of different kinds of cloth together, yet 
to keep each lot intact, and to deliver to the finisher goods 
so uniform that he can feel sure that like treatment will 
produce like results. He is thus able to mix his starch 
according to his formula and be sure of his result. 

This one thing has had just as much influence on that 
industry as improved tool-steel has had on the machine-shop 
industry. I say it has had, — it will have, when it is ex- 
tended to the degree to which it will ultimately be extended. 
The development is proceeding and it is being gradually 
extended throughout the country. 

I give that just as an illustration of what I mean when I 
say that, in a non-metal-working industry, there is nearly 
always something in which improvement can be made, just 
as improvement has been made in the metal-working industry 
by high-speed tool-steel. 

We have found that if work is properly planned, so that 
unnecessary delays do not occur and the workmen are pro- 
vided with proper implements to enable them to perform their 
tasks in the best manner we can devise, they can, as a rule, 
wherever the amount of work done depends upon physical 
exertion, do an average of three times as much as they did 
on day-work, before planning and task-setting were begun, 
and feel no more tired at night. 

Maintaining Proper Conditions. While the setting of 
tasks under the proper conditions and in the proper spirit, 
accompanied by a suitable reward for accomplishment, is of 
great advantage, it is essential that the conditions under which 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 75 

the tasks have been set should be maintained permanently. 
Failure to maintain these conditions will work hardship on 
the workman and will make it impossible many times for him 
to perform his task. No one should, therefore, undertake 
the introduction of task-work, unless he is prepared to 
maintain the conditions of his shop at a high standard; 
otherwise dissatisfaction is sure to spring up. 

The sum of the tasks which can be performed by the indi- 
viduals of the shop is the shop-task, and the sum of the tasks 
of the shops the factory-task. Every foreman who can suc- 
ceed in the accomplishment of his shop- task should be properly 
rewarded. In such a scheme as this the foreman and the 
workmen are brought together by mutual interest, and there 
develops a spirit of cooperation. Under such a scheme as 
this, it is perfectly evident that there will be a decided 
increase in profits. 

Having satisfied ourselves that these methods, if properly 
applied, will result in an increased production of wealth, we 
must, before passing final judgment on the scheme, ask what 
effect this increase in wealth will have on the industrial 
conditions of the country. 

Effect of Scientific Management on General Pros- 
perity. General prosperity is not promoted by the accu- 
mulation of wealth in the hands of one class, but by the 
interchange, or distribution, of commodities. 

Unless, therefore, these methods help the distribution, the 
community will be but slightly benefited; individual con- 
cerns will undoubtedly be largely benefited at first, but it 
is doubtful if this benefit will continue unless the public at 
large is also benefited. I emphasize this point, because I 
have had so many letters from people who looked upon Sci- 
entific Management as a new instrument by which they could 
squeeze a little more out of the workman and give him no 
more in return. I have no time for those people, and I do 
not want to have anything to do with them. We must 
share what we get. 

Adam Smith told us, over a century ago, that prosperity 



76 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

is greatest when the percentage of profits is small, and 
business, or interchange, large. We also know this to be a 
fact, and unless some of the economies of these methods are 
shared with the public in the shape of reduced selling price, 
thus making possible an increase of business, it is extremely 
doubtful if these methods will permanently improve our 
industrial conditions. 

The average producer has already done much to reduce 
costs, especially during the last few years, and the methods 
outlined promise a reduction that will be still more marked; 
but until the financier and the selling agencies (by selling 
agencies, I mean all the middlemen) cease to violate the funda- 
mental law of economics, that small profits make good business, 
the work of the producer in reducing costs will not help 
business very much. 

High cost of living all over the civilized world today is not 
so much the result of high wages as of high profits. High 
profits reduce business, and small business, by limiting the 
demand, enables factories to turn out only a small product, 
the cost of which is necessarily increased. With regard to 
that, I might say that a man, for whom I had done some work, 
came to me during a business depression and said, "I am run- 
ning my factory only half-full. If I ran it full, I could afford 
to sell my product at a very much lower price, and still make 
money." I said, "I am very much pleased to hear that; 
the cost-system I put in is worth something to you, if it 
has shown you that." He said, "Yes." I said, "What are 
you going to do about it?" "Well," he said, "I think I shall 
run my factory full; I can afford to do it. I am going to 
reduce my selling price until I can fill my factory." He had 
got out of the idea of limiting production. There had been a 
"gentlemen's agreement" among his competitors about price, 
— they were not going any lower than they had to go; but 
he found that he could make a great deal more profit by 
reducing his selling price and filling his factory. Unquestion- 
ably, the demand for those goods will increase with the de- 
creased selling price, and his competitors will probably keep 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 77 

busy, too, if they are willing to come down to the same price. 
We have in this country all the elements needed to produce 
the present conditions of small business and high cost of 
living; and they are all based on the one economic fact 
which the financier has absolutely ignored, namely, that large 
profits always tend to diminish business. 

I believe that this principle should be most carefully con- 
sidered by students of economics, and that it is of far more 
importance than details to the public in general. 

Scientific Management and Labor-saving Machines. 
Scientific Management has been likened to labor-saving 
machinery, and the parallel is very close. In adopting it, 
however, we should recognize our obligations as well as 
privileges, and build for the future as well as for the 
present. 

Labor-saving machiney has greatly increased wealth and 
improved the conditions of civilized man, but with the in- 
crease of wealth has come greater relative differences between 
rich and poor, and it is doubtful if the relations between 
employer and employee are any better today than they were 
two centuries ago. 

During the time of such an increase of wealth many indus- 
trial problems should have been solved, but were not, largely 
because an economic law was ignored. In the utilization of 
this new instrument, it will be of great benefit to the com- 
munity if the laws of distribution are studied along with those 
of production. 

In considering the parallel between Scientific Management 
and labor-saving machinery, we may note that properly 
designed and operated labor-saving machinery, when applied 
to a suitable purpose, has produced great economies, and 
assisted materially in the production of wealth; but when 
improperly designed, or improperly operated, has often been 
a source of great expense. We may expect similar results 
with what is called Scientific Management. 

The high-sounding term Scientific Management should not 
be allowed to mislead anybody. It is not something that 



78 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

can be bought wholesale and utilized retail, but simply means: 
study your problem according to scientific methods, eliminat- 
ing guess, setting each man a proper task, and allowing suit- 
able rewards for the accomplishment of these tasks. This 
done, increased efficiency is bound to follow. 

In setting a task, emphasis should be put upon the elimina- 
tion of guess, for there is no surer way to induce dissatisfac- 
tion or inefficiency than to change a task or a piece-rate which 
has been accepted in good faith. On the other hand, when 
the workmen realize that tasks once set will not be changed, 
and that they are set in an equitable manner, they not only 
do not object to the setting of tasks, but they do everything 
they can to help along the work. 

If a proper scheme of management is devised, by which all 
the available knowledge is used to plan all work, and where 
tasks are set in accordance with the best knowledge we have, 
and workmen are liberally compensated for the performance 
of these tasks, it is without question that marked economies 
will be effected. 

If, on the other hand, the great advantage to be obtained 
by this new instrument leads employers to adopt ill-designed 
schemes of management, or to operate even good ones in a 
poor manner, it is readily conceivable that by so doing they 
may not be gainers, but serious losers. 

As an indication of what may be accomplished by Scientific 
Management and the Task and Bonus system, I quote from 
a book called Making Both Ends Meet, published by the 
Macmillan Company. This book was written by Mrs. Sue 
Ainslie Clark and Miss Edith Wyatt, who are making a study 
of the work of self-supporting women. 

Last winter, when there was so much advertisement given 
to the subject of Scientific Management, Miss Wyatt wished 
to make an investigation of the effect of these methods on 
working women, and visited three plants where the writer 
had installed, in a measure at least, the principles referred to 
in this article. Two of these plants were bleacheries and one 
a cotton mill. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 79 

I quote the following concerning the work at the first 
bleachery — a large concern in New England. 

"The first process at which women are employed is that of 
keeping cloth running evenly through a tentering machine. . . . 
The tentering machines used to run slowly. This slowness 
enhanced the natural monotony and wearisomeness of the 
work. The girls used to receive wages of $6 a week, and to 
rest three-quarters of an hour in the morning and three- 
quarters of an hour in the afternoon, with the same period 
for dinner at noon in the middle of a ten-and-one-half-hour 
day. After Scientific Management was introduced, the girls 
sat at the machine only an hour and twenty minutes at a time. 
Then they had a twenty-minute rest and these intervals of 
work and rest were continued throughout the day by an 
arrangement of spelling with 'spare hands.' The machines 
were run at a more rapid rate than before. The girl's task 
was set at watching 32,000 yards in a day; and if she achieved 
the bonus, as she did without any difficulty, she could earn $9 
a week. The output of the tentering machines was increased 
about sixty per cent. 

"The girls at the tentering machines praised the bonus 
system eagerly. They said they could not bear to return to 
the former method of work ; that now the work was easier and 
more interesting than before, and the payment and the hours 
were better. One of the 'spare hands' showed me, as a me- 
mento of a new era of tenter-hooking machines, the written 
slip of paper the efficiency engineer had given to her, explain- 
ing to her how to arrange the intervals of rest and to start the 
'rest' with a different girl on each Saturday — a five-hour 
day — so that the same girls would not have three intervals 
of rest every Saturday." 

After the present writer left the works, the system was 
introduced into another part of the factory, but in a modified 
form. Miss Wyatt's comment on this is as follows: 

"But in another part of the factory, the girls at the tenter- 
ing machines had wished to lump their rest intervals and to 
take them all together in fifty-minute periods in the middle 



80 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

of the morning and of the afternoon. Here the 'spare hands' 
intervals at the machines fell awkwardly, and they were obliged 
to work for an unduly long time. The girls became exhausted 
with the monotony in these longer stretches of work; and 
further wearied themselves by embroidering and sewing on 
fancy work in the long rest periods. Here the girls were much 
less contented than in the other department." 

"Before the introduction of the bonus system, one girl used 
to fold, inspect, and ticket. She used also to carry her material 
from a table near the yarding machine. Boys now bring the 
material except where at the yarding machines for heavier 
stuffs it is pushed along the table. The hours, as for almost 
all of the bonus workers, have been shortened by 45 minutes. 
The wages which were $7.50 a week are now between $10 
and $11 on full time. Almost all the workers here said they 
greatly preferred the bonus system and would greatly dislike 
to return to other work." 

"In the further processes of folding, some of the work and 
the lifting to the piles of the sheer, book-folded stuff is light, 
but requires great deftness; other parts of the work and the 
lifting to the piles are heavier. The wages before the bonus 
was introduced was $7.50 a week, and with the bonus 
rose to $1 1 a week, in full time. As with the inspectors, the 
work was now brought to the folders, and the hours were 
shortened by 45 minutes. Here there was great variation in 
the account of the system. 

"One of the folders on light work, a wonderfully skilful 
young woman, who folded 155 pieces a day before, and now 
folded 887, could run far beyond her task without exhaustion 
and earn as much as $15 a week. She and some of the ex- 
pert workers paused in the middle of the morning for 10 or 
15 minutes' rest and ate some fruit or other light refresh- 
ment, and sometimes took another such rest in the afternoon. 

"Another strong worker, employed on heavy material, 
though she liked the bonus system, and said, 'it couldn't be 
better,' had remained at work at about the same wages as 
before, because . . . there was hardly more than enough of 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 81 

her kind of work to occupy her for more than four days a 
week. She still earned about $8." 

"In the last process of stamping tickets and ticketing, the 
girls work without one superfluous motion, with a deftness 
very attractive to see; and both here and at book folding 
justify the claim made by Scientific Management that speed 
is a function of quality." 

With regard to the cotton mill, the following statements 
may be quoted: 

"By and large, the wages of the women workers in the 
cotton mill had been increased by Scientific Management." 

"Concerning the health and conservation of the strength 
of the women workers in the mill under Scientific Manage- 
ment, the task of the speeders and of the women at cloth inspec- 
tion tired the girls no more than it had before. In the spool 
tending and the winding, as the two most exhausting opera- 
tions in each process, the stooping and the stamping of the 
pedals, had been increased by the heightened task, the ex- 
haustion of the workers was heightened. But the work of 
the excitable little spool tender mentioned was finally arranged 
so as to leave her in better health than in the days when she 
was employed on piece-work, and the management was now 
endeavoring to eliminate the stooping at the bobbins. At 
spinning almost all the spinners found the work easier than 
before, probably because Scientific Management demands that 
machine supervision and assistance shall be the best possible. 
It must be remembered that the adjustment of the conditions 
in the mill here is comparatively new. Almost all the girls said : 
'They don't drive you at the mill. They make it as easy for 
you as they can.' It was of special value to observe the 
operation of Scientific Management in an establishment where 
all the industrial conditions are difficult for women. . . . The 
best omen for the conservation of the health of the women 
workers under Scientific Management in the cotton mill was 
the equity and candor shown by the management in facing 
situations unfavorable for the women workers' health and 
their sincere intention of the best practicable readjustments." 



82 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

In the second bleachery about twelve girls only were work- 
ing on this system, and they were all employed in folding and 
wrapping cloth. 

''The arrangement of the different processes was so differ- 
ent for each worker, after and before the system was installed, 
that none of the girls could compare the different amounts of 
work she completed at the different times. But the whole 
output, partly through a better routing of the work to the 
tables, and by paying the boys who brought it a bonus of 
5 cents for each worker who made her bonus, was increased 
from twenty-five to fifty per cent. 1 

" The girls' hours were decreased from io| a day, with fre- 
quent overtime up to nine at night, to g\ a day with no over- 
time, the Saturday half-holiday remaining unchanged." 

" The whole tendency of Scientific Management towards 
truth about industry, toward justice, toward a clear personal 
record of work, established without fear or favor, had inspired 
something really new and revolutionary in the minds of both 
the managers and the women workers where the system had 
been inaugurated. Nearly all of them wished to tell and 
obtain, as far as they could, the actual truth about the 
experiment everywhere. Almost no one wished to 'make 
out a case.' This expressed sense of candor and coopera- 
tion on both sides seemed to the present writer more 
stirring and vital than the gains in wages and hours, far 
more serious even than the occasional strain on health 
which the imperfect installation of Scientific Management 
had sometimes caused." 

" No finer dream was ever dreamed than that the industry 
by which the nation lives should be so managed as to secure 
for the men and women engaged in it their real prosperity, 
their best use of their highest powers. By and large, the great 
task of common daily work our country does today is surely 
not so managed, either by intent or by result, either for the 

1 It was probably considerably more than that. The methods of doing 
business before and after the installation of the system were so different that 
it is almost impossible to get a measure. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 83 

workers or for the most 'successful' owners of dividends. 
How far Scientific Management will go towards realizing 
its magnificent dream in the future will be determined 
by the greatness of spirit and the executive genius with 
which its principles are sustained by all the people 
interested in its inauguration, the employers, the workers, 
and the engineers." 

The Chairman: 

IT should be the object of every manager and owner to 
give the employee a just and reasonable compensa- 
tion for his labor, and to secure a like return on the 
capital invested, under all conditions of a fluctuating market. 
In times of stress of business, when the balance sheet runs 
badly and a spirit of disquietude pervades the industrial and 
financial centers, the employer faces his gravest responsibilities 
as between the care of the employee and the reasonable pro- 
tection of his balance sheet. But the responsibilities do not 
rest with the employers only ; labor must recognize its share ; 
the opportunities and the responsibilities are mutual. The 
laborer should recognize that his interests are identical 
with those of the employer, and should cooperate to secure 
the most efficient application of energy. In the long 
run wages depend upon productivity. The detection and 
elimination of false effort should be the prime object of 
Scientific Management. Success is not measured by the 
amount of energy we expend, but by the results produced 
by that energy. The principle we are considering is that of 
so applying the efforts of the employee that he shall produce 
the greatest results with the minimum of exertion. 

I am sure we shoud like to hear of the opportunity for 
efficiency and advancement which this system offers to the 
employee. We are fortunate to have with us, to present 
this phase of the subject, a gentleman who was one of the 
first to become prominent in the field of industrial organi- 
zation. It pleases me to present Mr. Harrington Emerson, 
of New York City. 



84 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



THE OPPORTUNITY OF LABOR UNDER SCIENTIFIC 
MANAGEMENT 

By HARRINGTON EMERSON 

The Emerson Company, New York 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

IT was my great good fortune to meet Mr. Taylor 
about ten years ago. We have never worked together. 
We came into this work along different lines. I have 
been fortunate in hearing him speak a number of times since, 
and I have had a number of instructive personal conferences 
with him. One of the things that most strikes me is how 
identical our experiences have been, and how, along dif- 
ferent paths, we have come to the same conclusions, using 
sometimes different words to describe the same thing, but 
oftentimes even into minute methods following the same 
procedure. 

It has been perhaps my good luck or my misfortune, as you 
may view it, to be obliged to do the big thing quickly rather 
than slowly. Occasionally that is necessary. A man may 
take a long time, as long a time as he chooses, to calculate 
an eclipse, but if he is on a battleship, he has to aim and fire 
the gun at the enemy with great rapidity. And probably 
the highest example of Scientific Management and efficiency 
that the world has ever seen is to be found on an American 
battleship, when in thirty seconds time they determine the 
distance of the enemy's ship, and from the floating, heaving 
support are able to hit the heaving target in the center once 
in thirty seconds. 

For thirty years the railroads have had trouble with their 
shop employees. There were the Altoona riots of 1877, when 
the State of Pennsylvania had to pay several million dollars 
damage to the Pennsylvania Railroad on account of destruc- 
tion of its property by mob violence. There was the Debs 
strike in 1894, the Union Pacific strike in 1903, the Atchi- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 85 

son strike in 1904, and the Erie strike that lasted from 1904 
until 1907. There was a strike of the Great Western, which 
sent that road into the hands of a receiver in 1907; and at 
the present time there is a great railroad strike in process on 
the Harriman lines, a strike involving many thousands of 
employees and accompanied by violence which in one of the 
states has necessitated the calling out of the militia; a strike 
accompanied by damage to property and by murder. 

I was with Mr. Burt, President of the Union Pacific, at the 
time of his strike in 1903. I was called to the Atchison in 1904 
at the time of its machinists' strike. The task that the vice- 
president, Mr. Kendrick, took up with me was this: imme- 
diately to continue the repair and renewals of the rolling-stock 
and the motive power of the road, in spite of the strike; sec- 
ondly, to take care of a 40 per cent increase in business 
without securing new shops or new equipment, because the 
business came suddenly, and it would have taken a long time 
to build the new shops and to secure the new equipment; 
thirdly, to restore amicable relations between the employer 
and the employee, relations that had been disturbed for a 
long series of years and had finally culminated in this very 
bitter strike. And, finally, to lessen the unit cost, — although 
this was incidental, it not making so very much difference to 
the railroad whether its shop expenses were a little higher 
or a little lower, so long as it was able to fulfil its duty to 
the public and take care of the traffic. 

The Atchison Road lies in the triangle between the Union 
Pacific, the Southern Pacific, and the Illinois Central lines, 
all three Harriman fines now engaged in this strike. For 
seven years there has been no labor trouble of any kind or 
description between the Atchison and its shop employees. 
Its unit costs in one particular department fell to one-third 
of what they were on the Southern Pacific for the same unit. 
And last year the employees of the Atchison were paid over 
$1,000,000 in bonuses above the current rate of wages on the 
Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific. 

The attempt to introduce Scientific Management on the 



86 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Atchison was of course elementary, crude and slight; but 
such as it was, it was at least on a large scale, and for seven 
years it has withstood the assault of all kinds of critics. 

Like Mr. Taylor and Mr. Barth, I have been able to reduce 
cost-operation to a mathematical formula. All operating 
costs, all manufacturing costs, consist of simply three elements: 
materials, labor and fixed charges. If the operation is the 
making of a pin, you have the elements of material, labor and 
fixed charges; and if the operations are those of the United 
Steel Corporation for ten years, you have again materials, 
labor and^ fixed charges. 

Materials, however, consist of two items, the quantity 
that you use and the price. Labor consists of two items, 
the time that it takes and the rate that you pay per 
hour; and equipment charges, into which fixed charges 
run, consist also of two items, the time that the equip- 
ment operates and its cost per hour to operate. Hitherto 
we have all paid attention to the price of materials, and 
we have particularly paid attention to the rate of wages 
per hour, and we have also paid attention to the cost of 
our equipment. Those are not the important items. I 
can^safely say they are negligible. The important items are 
the quantity of material that is used and the time that it takes 
to do the work, whether it is the work of man or whether it is 
the work of equipment. 

To illustrate, in a certain shop it had been costing them 
$12,000 a year for belting. They bought belting the way 
shops usually buy belting — the railroad shops at least. The 
purchasing agent put it up to the belt manufacturers, and 
the lowest bidder supplied the belting; and naturally it was 
the very worst belting you could possibly buy anywhere in 
the market, and it wore out accordingly. I said to the pur- 
chasing agent, "Buy the very best belting that you can se- 
cure in the whole market." "Why," he said, "it will cost 
50 per cent more." I said, "The manufacturer is not getting 
the price he should get for it. So few people know what 
good belting is that he has to sell his best belting for less 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 87 

than its relative value. So, not only pay the highest market 
price, but give him 5 per cent additional for the privilege 
of turning back any belt that we do not want after it has 
been put in operation. That will make him careful to 
furnish the very best and that will be worth the 5 per 
cent." Price went up and quantity went down, and in the 
next year we spent $600 for belting instead of $12,000, and 
we had the best-belted large shop in the world. 

With labor it is the same thing. I recently went through 
the machine-shop of a big textile mill in New England. I 
was not particularly interested in textiles, but I was inter- 
ested in the machine-shop. And when I came back, the presi- 
dent asked me what I thought of it. I somewhat unwisely 
said, "I don't think very much of your machine-shop." He 
bridled at that, very much as a woman bridles when you tell 
her that her baby isn't pretty. And the master mechanic 
said to me, "Do you understand that this is a shop where we 
do repair work? We are not a manufacturing shop; we may 
tie up a mill if we hesitate, if we delay about any work. Have 
you realized that we cannot apply all these refinements of 
methods and cards and so on which you put into a shop that 
is manufacturing? " I might have said that, having been many 
years in the problem, I had not overlooked it, but the presi- 
dent said, "Let us go out at once, and you tell me what you 
mean." We went out and the first machine that we came to 
had a little piece of steel on it about the size of a visiting card. 
It was a little slotter. It was overrunning the stroke three- 
fold instead of just making a little cut across. The tool was 
in the metal only one-sixth of the time. The efficiency was 
only 30 per cent as to time. The speed of stroke was only 
one-third as fast as it should have been — an efficiency of 
speed of 33 per cent. They had a diamond-point tool for 
taking a sixty-fourth of an inch. I think they might have 
taken with the round-nose tool that Mr. Taylor described 
last night probably an eighth of an inch; we will allow them 
a sixteenth. The efficiency of the feed, therefore, was only 
25 per cent. He was taking four cuts when a roughing cut 



88 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

and a smooth cut would have been sufficient. That would 
have brought him down to 50 per cent on the number of 
cuts. The end efficiency of that particular operation was 
only one and a quarter per cent. He was taking eighty 
times as long to do the work as he should have. I said to 
the president, "I don't care whether that is a repair opera- 
tion or not, I don't care whether your mill is tied up; I am 
somewhat doubtful whether it is necessary to do the work; 
but assuming that it is, at any rate under Scientific Manage- 
ment you would not overrun your cuts, you would not have 
these microscopic feeds, you would not be taking four cuts 
where two are sufficient, and you would save time on your 
breakdowns." 

It takes supervising intelligence to adjust the tool to the 
hardness of the material, to make a machine get the most 
out of a tool; and this supervising intelligence is not only 
worth money but it commands money. Under Scientific 
Management it commands more money than ever before, 
because Scientific Management recognizes the intelligence, 
measures its value in dollars and cents, and realizes that it 
can be maintained and stimulated only by an efficiency 
award. 

The profit made by a worker is not his cost of pay per 
hour, but the difference between his expense per hour and 
his earnings per hour. Under Scientific Management a 
worker may reduce his expense 20 per cent and increase 
his earnings 30 per cent, thus increasing his net earnings 
several hundred per cent. 

That is the opportunity of labor under Scientific Manage- 
ment. It is not imaginary, for I have known a great many 
men who were simply on the ragged edge, men approaching 
middle age, who increased their net income from $2 and $3 
a month, which was all they were able to save, up to $25 
and $30 and $40 and even $50 a month, which they invested 
in houses, in building societies, while one of them set up an 
automobile repair shop with his savings and of course is on 
the road to become a millionaire. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 89 

The incident of one and a quarter per cent, which I have 
described, illustrates the law of dependent sequence. When 
you have a number of operations succeeding each other, one 
coming after the other, each of them may be relatively 
efficient, but when you multiply the inefficiencies of each with 
the inefficiencies of all the others, the net result is a tre- 
mendous shrinkage in the possible output, as in that actual 
example which I have given, of an efficiency on the little piece 
of steel of only one and a quarter per cent. Now this law 
of dependent sequence was not formerly so much in evidence 
and operation and so effective as it is today. 

The cost formula of efficiency shows that as higher and 
higher efficiencies are realized, drones, idlers, as well as other 
wastes are eliminated, and those who actually do the work 
make all the direct gain. It is the duty and obligation of 
modern manhood, of the modern corporation, of the modern 
state, it is the supreme end of Scientific Management, to see 
that no worker plays unfairly, that all workers have an equal 
chance. 

It furthermore appears that strenuousness and efficiency 
are antagonistic and opposite. The inevitable result of effi- 
ciency is to lessen the effort per hour, but to give the worker 
higher pay for the hour. The greatest opportunity which has 
ever come to the world's workers is the one now offering, and 
if they are wise they will seize it and insist on the immediate 
adoption of efficiency ideals, since the inevitable and unes- 
capable result of efficiency is to increase pay and lessen effort. 
Scientific Management will bring reward to whoever prac- 
tises it. Will the wise few practise it and reap reward, or 
will the many become wise, practise it, and reap reward? 
Those of us who have been closest to the development of 
the science hope that it will be used by all, not by the few, 
and I shall briefly refer to one example of the way Scientific 
Management works for the benefit of all concerned. 

For seven years there had been no shop labor dispute on 
the Santa Fe. Last year the employees were paid a bonus 
above current wage rates of over $1,000,000, yet unit 



go TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

costs were less than on the paralleling roads, because on the 
Santa Fe the principle prevails that the lower the cost of the 
road, the higher the pay to the employee, and also the principle 
that to work under standardized conditions is easier than to 
work under unstandardized conditions. On the Santa Fe it 
is conditions that have been standardized, not toil that has 
been increased; it is wastes and costs that have been 
decreased in order that pay may be increased. 

What is Scientific Management? Why should there be 
Scientific Management? What is the opportunity of labor 
under Scientific Management? 

Let us first answer the second question. Why should there 
be Scientific Management? Why is the good old way not 
still the best? 

Up to a hundred years ago human beings used yesterday's 
sun, last season's sun to do today's work. We were drawing 
distinctly on the current activities of the sun. Today we 
have tapped the sun's savings-bank, we are dissipating the 
energy the sun collected for us millions of years ago through 
ages and ages. Two centuries ago, yes, as recently as when 
I was a child, we grew corn and wheat which animals and men 
ate, and animal muscles and human muscles did the world's 
work. Today it is coal and oil and gas that run our trains, 
our plows, our factories, our mills. 

When I was born, one-quarter of a ton of coal per inhabi- 
tant was the annual production of the United States, about 
as much horse-power as two able-bodied men could deliver in 
a year. In 1 910 the annual production was twenty- two times 
as much, or as many horse-power hours as forty-four able- 
bodied men can deliver. 

Last week in Indiana I saw three oil pull-engines hitched 
to a gang of fifty-one plows turn over eighteen acres in an 
hour; they could plow up a square mile of land in thirty-six 
hours with two shifts of eight men. I have seen ground that 
has never been plowed, always spaded. It would take a man 
560 seasons to spade up a square mile of unbroken prairie. 
I once started out to break a section of level land. I had 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 91 

a good span of mules and a good breaking plow. I soon dis- 
covered that my maximum output was two acres a day and 
that it would take me four seasons to finish a section. I felt 
as if I had been condemned to four years at hard labor and I 
quit. With oil pull-engines and modern gang-plows it would 
have taken sixteen of us less than a month to plow up sixteen 
sections, 10,240 acres. 

When I was a child we utilized the eighth of an inch of the 
fall of a river to turn slowly great water-wheels, developing 
a few horse-power. Today we utilize from crest to foot the 
falls of Niagara, the drainage of a great lake region. In the 
words of the philosopher Bowsher of Cleveland, "Formerly 
we used incarnate energy, today we are utilizing uncarnate 
energy." 

Uncarnate energy hurls our cannon-shot eight miles at an 
enemy so far away he can scarcely be seen ; uncarnate energy 
drives the "Lusitania" thirty miles an hour across the ocean, 
drives our trains in eighteen hours from New York to Chicago, 
lights our cities, moves our trolley-cars, turns our machinery, 
hustles the automobile along our public roads at forty 
miles an hour and hurls the aeroplane 12,000 feet high 
or in straight flight at ninety miles an hour. It is the 
greatest source of wealth that we have tapped since we 
learned how to loot the accumulated stores of energy which 
lie in the earth, — since we have learned also how to utilize 
the uncarnate sources of energy in man himself. 

But we are still living under the laws, under the theories, 
under the practices and ideals, under the habits of thought 
of the age of incarnate energy; and those laws, those theories, 
those practices, those ideals, those habits of thought do not 
fit present conditions. 

We need new ideals, we need new principles; we need new 
practices, new types of organization, new equipment; we need 
a new science, we need new types of executives, and these 
new creations we group under the title of Scientific Manage- 
ment. It is because of the new ideals and the new science 
that the old way is "no good." 



02 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

A generation ago, when men first tapped the natural gas, 
what did they do with it? They let it flow out into the air, 
a pillar of fire by night, a column of smoke by day. They 
did not use one one-thousandth part of its energy for any 
useful purpose whatever. Today we husband it as the 
most precious of fuels. We have applied science to its use. 

The American people whose nation is founded on a Declara- 
tion of Independence must put under scientific control and 
management the tremendous revolution that is going on. If 
not, it would be better that we had never discovered how to 
use uncarnate energy. If we are not ready to become men, 
it were better to remain children. We should be better than 
pyromaniacs setting fire to the world for the stupid pleasure 
of watching it burn. We are like a young man formerly in 
short allowance who has suddenly inherited a great fortune. 
Shall we wisely use it? 

Scientific Management is therefore the discovery and use 
without waste of the incarnate and uncarnate energy of the 
universe. 

What is the aim of Scientific Management? It is intelli- 
gently to use all the available resources and knowledge of 
the universe in order to realize definite ideals. The ideals 
are: to use incarnate and uncarnate energy and incarnate 
intelligence, to decrease toil, to lessen costs that wages and 
profits may be increased; and so to distribute the loot of 
uncarnate energy and of the infinite possibilities of incarnate 
intelligence as to lessen the friction between man and man, 
thus raising moral, mental and physical standards, but at the 
same time lessening the destructive strain of living. 

Twenty- three hundred years ago Pericles, in his funeral 
oration for the Athenian soldiers who fell at Marathon, stated 
the ideals of his age; ideals that in noble height and beauti- 
ful expression have never been surpassed; ideals that a few 
hundred Athenians were able to attain out of a population 
of many hundred thousand; ideals that in this generation 
for the first time in history can be made the heritage of all, 
and will be made the heritage of those who reach up their 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 93 

heads, their hearts and their hands, and take. Pericles said, 
"We aim at a life beautiful without extravagance, and con- 
templative without unmanliness; wealth in our eyes is a 
thing not for ostentation but for reasonable use, and it is not 
the acknowledgment of poverty that we think disgraceful, 
but the want and endeavor to avoid it." The aim of Scientific 
Management is to realize for every worker Pericles' ideals. 
It is to give the worker his share in the sack of the sun's 
savings-bank, to give it to him intelligently, without waste 
and fairly, and to give it to him as soon as is possible. 

The struggle of the age is to induce both employer and 
worker to use uncarnate energy scientifically. Both can 
delay the day, neither can prevent its advent. 

Wages have increased only where uncarnate energy has 
displaced incarnate energy, and I defy any employer per- 
manently to depress the wages of men who use uncarnate 
energy; I defy any union of workers permanently to raise 
wages for incarnate energy. 

Those labor leaders who pretend that unionism is the cause 
of wage advance deceive their followers, and those labor 
leaders who denounce the scientific management of uncarnate 
energy, not only fight against their best friend, but they re- 
mind me of the bull, with lowered head, planted on the track, 
awaiting the onrush of a modern train. A very fine manifes- 
tation of pluck, but lamentably poor exhibition of judgment. 

The aim of philosophic, scientific action is: 

(1) To discover and make available the hitherto unknown 
resources of the universe. (2) To eliminate wastes from the 
utilization of both the old and new sources of energy. (3) To 
distribute equitably the gain. Is there any dissent from these 
ideals? Efficiency has no use for the man who is anxious 
neither to discover nor to utilize the resources of the universe. 
Efficiency has no use for the man who is callous to the waste 
of those resources. Efficiency has no use for the man, worker 
or employer, has no use for the corporation or the state, 
which does not strive to distribute the gain equitably. 

In Alaska I once came to a cabin. On the door was a notice: 



9 4 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

"You who come are welcome to use but not to abuse what 
you find. Eat, but do not waste, lest you harm those who 
come later." This is the law of the world and it is also the 
law of efficiency. 

The laws are fundamental. We are willing to explain them, 
to reason about them, but we are not willing to admit that 
they are questionable. If we cannot convert him, we shall 
eliminate the man who would turn backwards the clock of 
the universe. If we cannot convert him, we shall eliminate 
the man who deliberately wastes our heritage and that 
of our children; if we cannot convert them, we shall eliminate 
those who stand in the way of equitable distribution of the 
gain. 

The third question is, what is the opportunity of labor 
under Scientific Management? It is the greatest opportunity 
that ever came to labor; the opportunity to play the game 
according to the rule, and to demand individually, collect- 
ively and through the state an equitable share of the 
immense loot to which humanity has suddenly fallen heir. 

In so far as labor countenances waste and inefficiency, in 
so far as it objects to the substitution of uncarnate energy 
for incarnate energy, in so far as it advocates two hours' 
time for one hour's work, in so far as it tolerates two men on 
one man's job, in so far as it refuses to accept the principle 
of definite time for each operation, in so far as it objects to 
the fundamental principle of different capacities in different 
men with corresponding variation in hourly rate, labor is 
running counter to the fundamentals of Scientific Manage- 
ment and is delaying the greatest opportunity that ever came 
to it. The question of hours of work per day is a subsidiary 
question. I have never yet seen an employer object to count- 
ing four hours as a full day's work at high pay when the con- 
ditions surrounding the work clearly justify this short time. 
The question of wages per hour is also a subsidiary question. 
I have seen plant owners cheerfully pay to their workers 
$12 a day. This was in Alaska; but I spent the evening 
before I came up here with the owner of a glass plant from 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 95 

West Virginia, and in looking over his wage sheet we found 
one man whose daily wages had averaged above $13.10, and 
another on the same work, whose average was only $3.75; 
and we both deplored, not that one man was earning $10 
more, but that the other was earning $10 less, sirce the 
$13.10 man's work was the cheapest in cost in the whole 
plant. What I deplored with the Alaskan workers was 
not the $12 a day, but that, when the three months' 
season was over, these same men, returning to the United 
States, idled the nine months away rather than work for the 
local wage of $3 a day. There is a splendid oriental proverb : 
"It is better to work without pay than to loaf without pur- 
pose." The world's greatest workers have always been those 
who worked whether there was pay in it or not. 

Counseling the employee, I regret that able-bodied men 
in the prime of life deprive themselves and their class of 
$600 a year more which each might have earned. 

The efficiency formula of cost is as inexorable as the formula 
of centrifugal force. In every object produced there are 
twenty-eight elements of cost, whether the object be a single 
pin or the total output for ten years of the United States 
Steel Corporation. Compensation per hour of workers is one 
of the twenty-eight items of cost. As the other twenty-seven 
items are changed to secure lower cost, the twenty-eighth 
item of wages must increase. It is cost inefficiency that 
lowers wages, and nothing can raise wages but cost effi- 
ciency. 

First of all, let it be clearly understood that strenuousness 
and efficiency are not only not identical but usually opposites. 

To be strenuous is not the same thing as to be efficient. 
The man who spends two hours a day as a strap-hanger in 
the fetid subway, going to and from his work, is living strenu- 
ously but not efficiently. The man who tries to read several 
daily papers and all the monthly magazines is a strenuous 
but not efficient reader. The American people are the most 
strenuous people on earth, but also among the least efficient. 
A man may be very easy-going and with it be either efficient 



6 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

or inefficient. Scientific Management's aim is to replace the 
inefficient strenuous life as well as the inefficient lazy life with 
the efficient life, preferably easy. 

Modern life is too strenuous; that is a different question. 
It was perhaps easier for the carpenter to work twelve hours 
a day in his own shop, next to his own house, than to work 
eight hours a day, and spend two hours a day standing in the 
crowded, often fetid, subway with a long walk at both ends 
of the route. 

The strenuous life has engulfed us all; we live hard whether 
we are at the top or at the bottom. Peary voluntarily led a 
strenuous life for twenty-three years, trying to reach the 
North Pole. He did not have to, he wanted to. What is 
the gain to any one in a horse trotting a mile in two minutes 
rather than in two minutes and ten seconds, or what is the 
gain in the terrific struggle between two baseball teams? If 
strenuousness is the ideal, then Scientific Management will 
show how to attain it, but it could equally well show how to 
attain languorous ease. 

An Irishman who was scraping a fiddle was asked whether 
he was playing the violin by note or by rote. "By nather, 
it's by main force, be jabbers," and he should have added, by 
awkwardness. 

To stand a lifetime on one leg on top of a pillar is strenuous, 
but it is not efficient. To see the moons with the naked eye, 
as some Tatars can, is efficient, but not strenuous. For 
Prussia to conquer the balance of Germany in three summer 
weeks was efficient, but not very strenuous; for Germany to 
overcome Napoleon III in seven summer weeks was efficient, 
but not strenuous. 

Many thinkers, labor leaders, workmen and others have 
confounded strenuousness with efficiency, and have jumped 
to the conclusion that piece-work is a sample of efficiency 
when in reality it is the apotheosis of strenuousness. Effi- 
ciency means accomplishing any result with the least time- 
effort. To creep slowly is neither efficient or strenuous. To 
creep well is efficient but not strenuous. To creep fast is 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 97 

strenuous but not efficient. To walk two miles an hour is 
neither efficient nor strenuous. To walk three and a half 
miles an hour is efficient but not strenuous. To walk five 
miles an hour is strenuous but not efficient. To ride a bicycle 
six miles an hour is neither efficient nor strenuous. To ride 
a bicycle twelve miles an hour is efficient but not strenuous. 
To ride a bicycle thirty miles an hour is strenuous but not 
efficient. 

For engineer and fireman to run an oil-burning locomotive 
sixty miles an hour over a clear and good track is efficient but 
not strenuous. I was once riding on one of the oil-burning 
engines of the Santa Fe and we were hurrying along at sixty 
miles an hour. On one side sat the engineer, on the other 
the fireman. I was sitting beside the fireman watching him 
as with his thumb and fore-finger he governed the flow of oil, 
and he turned to me and said, "This is a cinch." But then 
he had a second thought coming, and he thought that it was 
imprudent to talk that way to me, who was advising the road 
as to economies. He tapped me on the shoulder and above 
the noise of the locomotive he said, "But think of the added 
responsibility!" He was right, although he may have put 
it in the wrong way. I was glad to see him earn higher wages 
for less effort. To drive a donkey at two miles through desert 
sand is strenuous but not efficient. To spade up forty acres 
in 560 man-seasons is strenuous but not efficient. To plow 
up 640 acres in thirty-six hours with a set of oil pull-and 
gang plows is efficient but not strenuous. 

Let us therefore abolish from our minds the apprehension 
and antipathy that rightly attach to inefficient strenuous- 
ness, and let us welcome efficiency flavored with just as much, 
and no more, strenuousness as is good for us, with full knowl- 
edge that highly strenuous efficiency is not so economical nor 
so good for us as a moderate scientific efficiency. 

Therefore Efficiency and Scientific Management do not 
include the ideals of terrific stunts, of exhausting endeavor, of 
stupendous exertion. On the contrary psychologists, physiol- 
ogists, hygienists, all of whose counsel is necessary for Scien- 



98 tuck school conference 

tific Management, will tell you that depression in any form is 
inimical to high attainment, is a form of disease whether it 
comes from the reaction of alcoholism, of extreme exertion, 
or from repellent and deadening work. 

Mr. Herman Schneider, the educator, divides work into 
two classes, energizing and lethargizing. There is effort that 
fills us with joy, other effort that fills us with revulsion. It 
is the aim of Scientific Management to give every one joyous, 
not deadening effort. 

A friend of mine had gone through a large New England 
mill to study possibilities of improving efficiency, and as he 
came out of a certain department, he said to the president: 
"The men in that department give you more trouble than 
any other men in the whole mill; and not only that, but in 
the town they are the most disorderly citizens, causing trouble 
and fuss. Not only that, but in their home lives they are 
unsatisfactory; they go away and leave their wives and chil- 
dren." And the president said, "All those things are true, 
but how did you know it?" He replied, "The lethargizing 
work that they do makes that kind of men." When a man 
has been doing lethargizing, deadening, repellent work, where 
the noise was so great that he could not even hear himself 
think, and keeping that up for ten hours, after he comes home 
he has to become some sort of an anarchist to get even. The 
Germans have a proverb, "All barbers are conservatives and 
all tailors radicals." And that illustrates a profound psycho- 
logical truth. The barber, who is busy with his different 
customers, — in the old time bleeding this one, making a wig 
for that one, shaving a third, taking out a tooth of a fourth, 
dressing the hair of a fifth, exchanging the gossip of the day — 
had plenty of opportunity to work off his surplus energy, his 
surplus feelings and thoughts. The tailor, sitting with his 
legs crossed, all day long in the monotony of drawing the 
needle through the cloth, was engaged in lethargizing employ- 
ment which deadened him, and when he came out the only 
way he could get even was to think radically and wish to act 
radically. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 99 

The best illustration that I know of the difference be- 
tween strenuousness and efficiency is found in the difference 
between the rooster trying to fly and the eagle. The rooster, 
if you chase him, squawks and flutters and by great exer- 
tion is able to clear an eight-foot fence, and he soon runs 
into a corner where you catch him with his mouth open, 
panting. The eagle soars hour after hour and never moves a 
pinion. The rooster flies strenuously, the eagle flies efficiently, 
poised as easily as the fireman sat on his oil-burning loco- 
motive. Therefore, one of the fallacies that both managers 
and men have to dismiss from their minds is that Scientific 
Management in any way whatever means an increase of 
strenuousness. It means the reverse; it means less effort 
and greater result. 

Having discovered that strenuousness is not one of the 
aims or ideals of efficiency, we return to the three aims: (1) 
The recovery of the hidden resources. (2) The elimination 
of waste. (3) The equitable distribution of the gain. 

It is immensely important not to discourage those who 
reveal national resources, who eliminate wastes. We cannot 
very well over-pay them. 

It is a tremendously pernicious fallacy that the poverty 
of the few is due to the wealth of the few. Even if it is true 
that 2 per cent of the few possess 90 per cent of all the 
wealth and that 2 per cent of the poor are starving; even 
if it is true that 1 ,600,000 people are starving in the United 
States — and we know that in this land of plenty this is not 
true — there is not one scintilla of evidence that the poverty 
is caused by the riches. 

In the Seward Peninsula, Alaska, were many Eskimos. 
They had lived there many thousand years. They barely 
subsisted, there was no gain in wealth from generation to 
generation, there was no gain in population, for occasionally 
in severe seasons whole settlements were wiped out by 
starvation. 

Into this country came a Swedish deserter from a whaling 
ship. He found indications of gold, he staked some claims. 



100 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

The rush began. Miners capable of working claims received 
$10 a day. Gamblers, saloon keepers, lewd women, came 
in great numbers. 

The claim-owners distributed much of the gold from these 
mines to the workers and to the ditch-builders, and spent 
the gold for machinery. Some of the claim-workers, after 
paying the bare cost of living and clothes, squandered their 
money on the gamblers and women. The right to distinc- 
tion of one of the original prospectors was not so much that 
he had found a mine as that he had paid $1,000 for the favor 
of a woman who thus also gained distinction. 

The Eskimos also profited. They found a market for their 
furs, for their carved ivories, for the fish they caught; many 
of them worked for wages instead of lolling in the Arctic 
summer sun. 

There were in this elementary community four classes of 
society: (i) The abnormally intelligent few who had un- 
covered hidden wealth, gold-bearing rock. (2) The men who 
worked or contributed to the working of the claims. (3) An 
abjectly poor class at the bottom, the Eskimos. (4) A 
predatory class of parasites. 

Can it be claimed that the poverty of the Eskimos was 
due to the wealth of the mine-owners? Can it be claimed that 
the poverty of the Eskimos was due to the appropriation 
of natural resources by the mine-owners? Would the class 
of mine-workers and the Eskimos have been benefited if the 
mine discoverer had been killed off before he could make 
known these discoveries? Is the class of wealth discoverers 
a benefit to humanity or not? Should any but natural laws 
be invoked to take from the discoverers what they have 
discovered and distribute it to the workers, the loiterers and 
the evil-doers? 

Men of initiative, the world over, have discovered wealth 
that had lain dormant for thousands of years. Columbus 
discovered America, Astor developed the fur trade, James J. 
Hill built a railroad through a desert, Armour saved what 
had formerly been wasted in the slaughter of cattle and hogs, 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ioi 

Rockefeller saved what had been wasted in refining crude oil, 
Harriman added to the value of railroad property by reduc- 
ing grades, laying a better road-bed, and carrying larger loads 
more rapidly and cheaply. 

Before the days of the Norman conquest there were unusu- 
ally poor and degraded people in London. Their condition 
has steadily improved; never through their own efforts, but 
always through those of the enterprising few who went out 
to trade abroad, or to build up manufactures at home, or to 
open up coal and iron mines. In what way is the wealth of 
the enterprising few responsible for the abject poverty of the 
few when this poverty has been steadily lessening century 
after century? 

At Nome the wealth of the mine-owner, inside of a few 
weeks, began to filter down to the Eskimos because there 
were only four classes. In England it takes longer because 
there are 400 classes between the top and the bottom, but 
the process is the same. 

There are two theories to wealth distribution: (1) Accord- 
ing to a man's deed. (2) According to a man's need. 

The first applies to man as distinct from woman, and after 
man conquered, each man applies the second theory to women 
and children. To the limit of the man's ability the needs of 
the women, and through them the needs of the children, are 
met. 

Shall we extend the application of the theory of need also 
to men in their relations to each other? When the sailor 
discovered the mine, should a committee of Eskimos have 
been appointed to take care of it and work it for the common 
good? As the Eskimos in 500,000 years had not discovered 
the mine over which they passed daily; as the Eskimos, in 
fact, placed no value in gold, being perhaps wiser than we in 
this respect; as they could not have worked it even if they 
had discovered it; as ultimately they would have to depend 
on a strong man who knew how, can we escape from the 
present order? 

Which is better? That each one of us, like the birds, hunt 



102 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

earthworms and flies for himself, as do the robins and swal- 
lows; or that the many stand to attention waiting for the 
lion to make a killing, then pounce on his prey, drive him off 
and apportion it between them? 

Some men become beggars and parasites though born whole, 
others born blind or without legs become prominent and use- 
ful members of society. In all but the fewest cases actual 
poverty and degradation is due to the fault of the individual, 
not to the fault of society, not to the fault of other individuals. 
That philosophy that thinks the boy at the bottom of the line 
in the spelling-bee is there because the boy at the top missed 
no words, that the ignorance of the boy at the bottom is 
the consequence of the scholarship of the boy at the top, 
is not hurting the boy at the top, who knows better, half 
so much as it is hurting the boy at the bottom, who, instead 
of learning his lesson, rails and rants at both teacher and 
good spellers. 

Columbus discovered America, our forefathers started the 
Revolution, Howe put the eye in the point of the needle, 
Pullman developed the sleeping car, Peter Cooper made 
gelatine, James J. Hill without subsidy or land grant built 
a transcontinental road, John Rockefeller eliminated the 
wastes in oil transportation, refining and distribution; we 
should all be poorer, not richer, if their work had been 
prevented as similar work has been thwarted and prevented 
in Russia. 

Nevertheless, this is begging the question, and I hold no 
brief to defend the rich and their possessions. I want for 
them, as for other individuals, the square deal. 

The opportunities for the worker are boundless, but what 
is the worker's share in realizing them, what the duty of the 
employer, or of the corporation, what the duty of the state? 

As to the duties of the state, it should practise Scientific 
Management, and with its almost unlimited power prevent 
the greatest evil of all, fluctuating employment brought about 
by variations in the costs of materials, in interest rates and 
in mininum wages. The state should afford to every worker 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 103 

state work at a minimum wage-rate per hour, and it should 
object to more than a maximum hours of toil per week. The 
state should furthermore insist on sanitary and safe con- 
ditions. The employee is selling his time by the hour, not 
selling either his soul or his future health. 

The corporation should not employ an incompetent or 
undesirable man. It should employ no man who does not 
like his work. It should do its uttermost to increase the 
efficiency of all the other items of cost than wages so that 
incompetence of management shall not be recouped by wage 
reduction to those not responsible for inefficiency. The 
corporation should recognize suitably, and fairly compensate, 
any individual merit. 

The worker should first of all apply Scientific Management 
to his own life. He should engage only in work in which he 
is competent, as otherwise he endangers and defrauds fellow- 
workers, his employer and himself. He should engage only 
in work in which he can find pleasure, since only pleasurable 
work can be competently performed. He should apply to 
himself and to his own life Scientific Management. If he can 
increase his own earning power 20 per cent by greater indi- 
vidual efficiency, and lessen his living cost 20 per cent by 
greater home efficiency, he has increased his net earnings 
many hundred per cent, since net earnings are the margin 
between receipts and expenses. It is most inefficient to 
damn fate Jwhen the remedy lies in his own hands. What- 
ever the hours and rate of pay, as to both of which he should 
have a voice, he should work faithfully, competently and with 
interest. In fairness to himself, to society, and to the state, 
the worker should not engage in unlawful occupation. 

The number of hours he shall work a week is a matter for 
consideration and bargaining between himself and his em- 
ployers. If he work a less number than is reasonable, he 
naturally lessens by so much his earning power. The rate 
per hour is one that neither he nor his employer can perma- 
nently determine, but he can properly insist on a guaranteed 
rate per hour as long as he is on the pay-roll. 



104 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

What can properly be done in an hour is for neither the man 
nor the employer to determine. It is as technical a problem 
as calculating an eclipse. The share of the worker in the gain 
as cost efficiency increases is a proper subject for bargaining. 
If a fair and reasonable standard time is set, if the worker is 
paid a bonus for attaining standard time, if he is given full 
pay for all the time he saves below standard, he can scarcely 
equitably ask more, nor can the employer equitably give 
less. 

One more word of agreement with Mr. Taylor. In this 
work of Scientific Management, the great difficulties that we 
have encountered have come not from the workingmen but 
from the management; always from the managers, never 
from the workers; sometimes from the managers of the 
workers, not from the workers themselves. In one great 
plant into which I went we proposed to introduce a system 
of despatching work through the plant. The general manager 
said, "That might be necessary in some other plant but it 
is not necessary here. We have that perfected here, as you 
will see." He pulled down the telephone and said, "Give 
me Bill. Is that you, Bill? I would like you to move those 
cylinders that came in yesterday over into the cylinder shop 
this afternoon about three o'clock." Hanging up the tele- 
phone, he said, "Could anything be simpler or more perfect 
than that?" It seemed to work very nicely. Then we went 
out to interview Bill. We proposed to him our scheme of 
despatching. He said, "That thing might work in some other 
plant, but it would never work here. It is too rotten for any 
good thing to work in this plant. Let me give you an example. 
Here you see this track with this boiler on it. I was expecting 
to unload that boiler today and had got the scaffolding all 
shored up there so that I could get it off, and I had the gang 
of men collected, the derricks ready, when I got a call on the 
telephone. The general manager orders me to move the 
cylinders over into the cylinder shop. The only way I can 
move them is on this track. He says he has to have them 
this afternoon at three o'clock, and I know perfectly he 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 105 

doesn't need them until next Monday. I was going to do 
it tomorrow. Now I must move out this car, scatter these 
men and try to get the cylinders in." And he added, "It 
is hell." Bill was very willing and ready to welcome a 
system of despatching that would have helped him avoid 
that kind of thing, but the manager was not. And that is 
almost universally the trouble. 



C&frD ^easion 

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 
THE THIRTEENTH 

Chairman, CHARLES H. JONES 

President of The Commonwealth Shoe and Leather Co., Boston 



SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND THE 
MANAGER 

INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

WE all know that Mr. Taylor's work began about 
thirty years ago, and that it has been patiently 
and persistently followed ever since. I believe the 
principles were reduced to writing some six or seven years 
ago, but it is within the past year only that the public has 
had its attention called to Scientific Management. Just now 
it is very prominently before the public. This very large and 
interested gathering attests thoroughly the business sagacity 
of the management of the Tuck School in calling this con- 
ference at this time; in fact, incidentally, it shows that they 
are qualified for the duties of training young men for business. 

Why is it that just at this moment Scientific Management 
seems to be attracting such general attention? It is not 
accidental; there is a reason. 

We all know of the primitive conditions of industry which 
existed in the early colonial days; there was scarcely a 
mechanic associated with another; each worked alone. But 
that society was able to supply its meager wants. Then came 
what today we call the small factory, established by a man 
who came up from the ranks, the exceptional man among 
the workmen in the district in which he lived. That man 
knew from life-long experience the needs of the people he 
proposed to supply, and the methods best adapted to supply- 
ing those needs. That was the small personally conducted 
institution which produced all the useful goods of this country 
for several generations. Our scientific friends tell us that in 

109 



no TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

some one department of that institution the very highest 
degree of efficiency was generally attained; that department 
was probably the department in which the head himself as 
laborer had been trained. He was able to get very creditable 
results in the business as a whole without any of the modern 
theories we are now gathered to discuss. 

About fifty years ago the wants of our people became so 
great that the old way of production could not supply the 
demand. In every crisis of the world's affairs leaders arise 
to conduct those affairs to a successful issue. So it was in 
this matter of production fifty years ago. Almost instan- 
taneously out of the ground grew all these wonderful machines 
with which we are familiar, and we were enabled to increase 
our productiveness manyfold. 

The population and wealth of the country grew, the wants 
of the people increased, and enormous aggregations of capital 
developed manufacturing communities in proportion to the 
demand. For a time they seemed to have the idea that 
mere size was sufficient; that results could be accomplished in 
proportion to the size of these establishments. But, as sug- 
gested by the speaker this morning, it was speedily ascertained 
that such was not the case. What was to be done? There 
were only two courses open, as I see it. One was to find 
men of such enormous executive ability that they could de- 
velop methods for handling these gigantic institutions; the 
other was to use the vast resources of the institutions to 
eliminate competition so that prices could be maintained and 
profits earned without the best methods in production. 

We are all familiar with many corporations which took this 
latter course, and with some which took the former. The 
only trouble with the great captains of industry is, that there 
is not enough of them; there is a limit to the number of men 
who have the capacity to handle these vast organizations; and 
so a great number of the organizations direct their energy to 
the removal of competition, and that, to my mind, is one of 
the principal causes of the increase of high prices and the 
increase of high living. Competition is the only force ever 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT III 

known that compels men to do their business right, and with 
that support removed, people are forced to pay profits on an 
extravagant cost. It seems to me that the day for success by 
these methods is fast drawing to a close. The activities of 
the government in the enforcement of the Sherman Law have 
made such methods unpopular at the present time. This is 
shown by the outcry we hear and read in the financial papers 
about the enforced stagnation of business. The fact is ignored 
that the rights of the people have been sacrificed, and that 
apparently business prosperity cannot be obtained until these 
evils have been corrected. 

It seems to me that right at this point Scientific Manage- 
ment looms very large. It seems to me quite possible that 
through the development of Scientific Management we shall 
find the way to increased efficiency. 

"Through Scientific Management, as explained by various 
speakers, lies the path for these great corporations to bring 
themselves up to the possibilities of their existence. There 
is no excuse for the assembling of their millions of dollars of 
capital if they can produce nothing for the good of humanity. 
What they must consider is better service to the community. 
They undoubtedly have obtained economies in distribution, 
in the purchase of their supplies, and so on ; but in the actual 
production of commodities I believe those which have really 
accomplished economies are very few. 

The first speaker of the afternoon is a graduate of Amherst, 
a Massachusetts boy, an enthusiast in the athletics of his 
institution. I believe he came to Hanover once as captain 
of the football team, and although he went home with an 
increased respect for the prowess of the Dartmouth students, 
he is perfectly willing to come back again, as you see. This 
gentleman has been interested not only in Scientific Manage- 
ment but in all those forces that make for civic uplift. While 
he has had his eyes ever on the balance sheet, — the barometer 
of success in trade, as was stated this morning — I believe 
from the bottom of my heart that his principal care and the 
object of his interest in Scientific Management is the promo- 



112 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

tion of the welfare of those he employs. I believe he has made 
no claims to being an efficiency engineer. After leaving col- 
lege he entered an industry which was as much in need of 
efficiency engineers, probably, as any industry in Massachu- 
setts; the book printing and binding business in a large way. 
It was not generally considered to be even systematic. And 
his orderly mind set about arranging, perfecting and improv- 
ing the details of the management of a vast business which he 
was called upon to superintend, possibly the greatest publish- 
ing and printing business of its kind in the country. After 
several years' hard work, which resulted in great improve- 
ment, he happened to meet Mr. Taylor, and that happened 
which always has happened when the receptive mind properly 
trained comes into the presence of new ideas. He absorbed 
the Taylor theory and rounded out and made complete the 
principles he had labored to establish. I know you will be 
glad to hear from Mr. Henry P. Kendall. 



UNSYSTEMATIZED, SYSTEMATIZED, AND 
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 

BY HENRY P. KENDALL 

Manager of the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

TIE plan of this paper is similar to one written 
previous to the hearings before the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission protesting against the general 
increase in freight rates. The purpose of that paper was to 
make clear what was meant by Scientific Management, a 
term then unfamiliar. To present the same line of thought 
again receives its justification by the first words in. the 
announcement of this conference, which states: " Notwith- 
standing the fact that much has been written concerning 
Scientific Management in newspapers and magazines, there 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 113 

is no definite conception in the minds of manufacturers and 
business men of its nature." 

That this type is not well known even now is scarcely to 
be wondered at. Until recently little had been written for 
the public press and but few manufacturers were working under 
it, and the small group of men who were associates of Mr. 
Taylor, or kindred spirits, were too engrossed in their own 
tasks to do much talking or writing. It is my object, then, 
to illumine Scientific Management by describing it in terms 
of business with which we are all familiar, and by comparing 
some of its essential features with those of more familiar 
types of management. 

Any manufacturing or mercantile business made up of differ- 
ent processes more or less interdependent must, to secure the 
best results, be so organized that the separate processes and 
the unit members within these will be brought into system- 
atic connection and operation as efficient parts of the whole. 
To bring about and maintain this is the function of the man- 
agement. To do it to the highest known degree is possible 
only by what we choose to call the science of management. 

All types of management seem to fall readily under three 
heads which, for want of a more explicit terminology, we will 
call: 

I Unsystematized Management 
II Systematized Management 
III Scientific Management 

Of course no classification of this kind is exact. Some 
departments of an unsystematized plant may equal those in 
a systematized, and likewise those in the second class may 
approach the third in efficiency in places; but on the whole 
this seems a natural division. The functions of the three 
types of management which will be compared are: 

A Accounting 

B Purchasing 

C Storage of Materials 

D Execution of the Work 

E Efficiency of the Workers 



114 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

I. Unsystematized Management. This classification is 
not made on a basis of the earnings of this group, nor does it 
mean that they are not meeting their own competition suc- 
cessfully or making money. Such a condition depends on 
the margin which exists between their costs and selling prices. 
It does classify them on a basis of efficiency, and means that 
their costs are not so low as they would be were their form 
of management the systematized or scientific type. In the 
opinion of the writer fully 70 per cent in number of the 
plants in this country would belong in this class, and they 
are easily recognized. I do not mean that 70 per cent of 
the workmen in the country are working under unsystema- 
tized management, but I think that 70 per cent of the con- 
cerns in number would come under this class. We will look 
at the first function, namely: 

A. Accounting. The accounting in a business includes not 
only the ordinary bookkeeping, but the entire clerical system 
which has to do with orders, records and costs. Accounting 
is the only means by which the management is informed 
from time to time of the condition of the business, the progress 
it is making, its weak and strong points, its selling values and 
costs, and the efficiency of all its departments. How thorough, 
lucid and complete the information is as shown by the books 
indicates to some extent the efficiency of the management 
and its grasp on the affairs of the company. In the unsys- 
tematized plant the accounting generally consists of a state- 
ment prepared after the annual or semiannual stock-taking, 
which shows (1) Profit and Loss; (2) Assets and Liabilities. 
It may possibly show profit and loss by departments or by 
products, but this last depends on a correct method of ascer- 
taining costs which the unsystematized plant seldom has. 
Such statements are merely a record of an historical fact in 
most cases. If the statement is bad it is too late to remedy 
the troubles of the previous year because it shows merely 
the result of that year. Frequently, due to imperfect methods 
of stock-taking, appraising and compiling, the yearly state- 
ment may be delayed; then the history it tells is ancient. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 115 

One example from my own observation — by no means 
unusual — will illustrate: A large concern ended its fiscal 
year on January 3 1 and did not know the result of its year's 
business until July 17 following, and then in the simple form 
of profit and loss, assets and liabilities. This information 
came nearly six months after the close of the business year 
and was then from six to eighteen months old, too late 
to do anything to stop the leaks of that year. This was a 
dangerous case, but a common one. 

Any firm of accountants can testify that it is no unusual 
thing to audit the books of a concern which thinks it is pros- 
perous, and to show that concern that it is insolvent. Within 
twelve months the writer has had experience with a busi- 
ness in which an audit was made of the books because the 
proprietor thought his bookkeeper had been dishonest. The 
audit showed that the bookkeeper had been honest but that 
the concern was insolvent, and shortly after it paid its creditors 
thirty cents on the dollar. 

A lack of proper cost accounting in the unsystematized plant 
is the cause of losses and of many failures. A notorious 
example of this appears in the printing industry. In Chicago 
one large department store makes the boast that it secures its 
printing below cost. Its method is to send for estimates on 
printed forms to a large number of printers for every job of 
printing it has to give out, and then to give it to the lowest 
bidder on the assumption that some one will have figured 
below cost. It is reported that at the close of one fiscal year 
there were no less than fifteen failures of printers in the city 
of Boston, and it would not be strange if this proportion 
held throughout the country in this particular industry. 

So much importance is placed upon cost of printing at the 
present time, that one national organization of employing 
printers has no less than eight men employed installing 
uniform cost systems in printing offices of its members 
throughout the country. Too little importance is placed 
upon accounting in the unsystematized plant, and as increas- 
ing competition in various industries is continually lowering 



Ii6 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

the margin of profit, the accounting must become relatively 
more and more important to this class of business. 

B. Purchasing. The purchasing of materials, stock and 
miscellaneous supplies under this type of management may 
be done by one man or by a purchasing department; but more 
likely this duty is not very well defined and the purchasing 
is done by a number of persons, especially those needing 
the material. Little study is put on the standardization of 
materials, and different kinds of stock for the same use are 
often bought. This tends to remnants on some kinds, over- 
stock and understock on others. The buying is seldom done 
on exact specifications, is not always even by written order, 
nor is there a predetermined maximum and minimum estab- 
lished of each article that should be carried in stock. The 
head of the business or the buyer may be an exceedingly shrewd 
trader and may buy very close at times; but he will not 
always buy the materials best suited to the work, often over- 
buys or underbuys for lack of definite information, and is 
frequently tempted by bargain lots that seem cheap but 
may cost more to use in the shop. 

The lack of well-organized purchasing results in work pro- 
gressing to a certain extent through the shop until it is stopped 
and occupies space waiting for some material which has been 
overlooked, or which is not suited for the purpose. A fairly 
successful publishing house in one of our large cities does its 
buying by the unsystematized fashion. Last year in making 
up its statement of profit and loss, the inventory of paper 
amounted to $20,000. Three-fourths of this paper exists as 
overruns, or odds and ends of lots which are stored in vari- 
ous printing offices and cannot be used on an average-sized 
job. They are so scattered they cannot be combined and 
the make, color, finish and size are different in nearly all 
the lots. When this house realizes what this stock is, it will 
be forced to write off nearly $15,000 from its books on what 
it now considers good assets. Had the buyer in that pub- 
lishing house standardized his paper so that whatever re- 
mained from one lot could readily be used on the next, had 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 1 17 

concentrated paper of certain kinds in one printing office, and 
had accurate records of his available supply, this amount of 
money represented in stock could be appreciably less and 
would equal the original cost of the paper. This sort of 
buying is common among unsystematized concerns. 

C. Storage of Materials. Many manufacturers are willing 
to devote unlimited space for workrooms, not realizing that 
the room for the proper storage of materials is just as impor- 
tant and just as profitable as that used for manufacture. In 
the unsystematized plant there may be a general storeroom, 
but seldom are all the stores to be found in it, and generally 
they are piled around almost anywhere and in any way that 
happened to be convenient when received. The order in 
which such stores are kept usually depends upon the initia- 
tive of the men directly in charge, and seldom can one person 
assume or carry out this responsibility. 

The storage of materials and purchasing are very closely 
related to each other. Loss of time hunting for material is 
the same whether the material is lost in the "storeroom or has 
not been purchased, and a lack of system in one department 
will undo attempts at system in the others. The effect of 
badly organized stores is: (1) Loss of time; work which should 
go through the manufacturing departments rapidly is held 
up at different places waiting for materials of the proper kind 
or amount, and this is a direct loss. (2) Loss of space; more 
space is required to hold stores in an unsystematized way, 
and for lack of standardization more stores will be kept on 
hand than are required. Space is also lost in the workroom 
because work in process does not pass promptly through the 
workrooms if delayed for material. (3) Loss of capital, because 
more money is tied up in stores which are not systematized 
and properly regulated, and more money is tied up in the 
jobs which represent labor and material sidetracked through- 
out the plant. A lack of proper records of stores is almost 
always to be found in the unsystematized plant, and the man- 
agement seldom sees the need for the so-called extra work 
necessary to conduct that department properly. 



Il8 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

D. Execution of Work. Orders in the unsystematized shop 
are recorded in a simple manner, sometimes even received 
and transmitted verbally by the salesman. These are 
described in part verbally to the superintendent, who may 
further enlighten the foreman on any of the details of such 
orders. It is assumed that the superintendent knows his 
business, that the foremen know theirs, and a workman is 
expected to sense what is wanted and to ask questions when 
he is not sure. In this way an attempt is made to fill in the 
exact and accurate information which the selling end has 
either not secured or has not transmitted in writing. 

The "single foremanship" plan prevails where one fore- 
man handles as many men as he can. The number of men 
and the amount of work he can look out for is limited by the 
amount of detail which he can carry in his head and by his 
physical and nervous endurance. He gives work to each 
workman when the latter has finished his last job, and 
depends largely on the worker's knowledge of what to do and 
how to do it. As questions arise in the progress of the work, 
or where the written order is incomplete, the workman goes 
to the foreman who in turn goes to the office for instructions. 
Meanwhile progress on the work stops. 

The workman goes for and selects his tools and appliances, 
and does his work in the way in which he is accustomed to 
do that particular kind of work. A difference in method of 
doing the same kind of work by different workmen and in 
different shops is often quite marked. A detailed schedule 
of the average workman's day in the unsystematized shop, 
where such day's work is varied, will show a surprisingly 
small proportion of effective time. 

Piece-work is often used, but is bound to be unequal. The 
rates, determined by no exact method, are often subject to 
change, and the output of such piece-work is frequently limited 
by the unions. This lack of planning the work at the start, 
of complete instructions, of coordinating the departments 
and routing work throughout each operation, results in a 
congestion of unfinished work at many points. This slows 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 1 19 

down the output, occupies space and ties up capital. The 
frequency of mistakes in rush times and of shortages that 
must afterwards be made up, are not always called to 
the attention of the management. It is exceedingly difficult, 
also, in this type of plant to secure a high quality of work and 
to maintain it uniformly. Then, too, the costs fluctuate a 
good deal. 

E. Efficiency of Workers, The efficiency, as a whole, is 
low and especially so in dull times. It is uneven and varies 
according to the executive ability of different foremen. The 
output of a man or machine is largely determined by the 
opinion of the foreman and not by any exact standard. Piece- 
work is not always fair, and may be too high or too low. There 
is no special incentive for a foreman to cooperate with the 
workman. Therefore, while the majority of the men may be 
doing what they consider a fair day's work, and some few may 
be working efficiently, the efficiency of the whole is low. 

One example will illustrate a well-known loss in efficiency. 
A workman in the hat trade performed one process in making 
a hat by piece-work, and earned not over $15 a week. 
He was well adapted to that kind of work and could easily 
have earned $25 a week at that rate and would have been 
happier doing his best, especially as he needed the money. 
He was limited to $15 a week by the union. It cost that 
firm more by this method, because the floor space occu- 
pied by this part of the work could have turned out 60 
per cent more hats if the men had been rightly selected for 
that kind of work and had been permitted to do their best. 
It also cost more because overhead charges were 60 per cent 
more per hat than was necessary for that operation. More 
than that, a workman who is well fitted for a task is not happy 
when he is not doing his best and earning all of which he is 
capable. There is an economic loss to each, and the result 
is bad. Even greater inefficiency than this may occur with 
day workers. 

II. Systematized Management. This term as used here 
applies to the well organized and managed plants which make 



120 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

no claim to Scientific Management as such. In these plants 
the managers are methodical and systematic, have studied 
and systematized each department carefully and aimed to 
secure the best that has been done in the line of systematiz- 
ing up to the present time. As stated before, in some depart- 
ments of many such plants the efficiency is exceedingly good. 

A. Accounting. In this form of management the account- 
ing is well done. The books will show the condition of the 
business quarterly or monthly, and in considerable detail. 
This will include the comparative feature; that is, for example, 
last year's costs to date with this year's costs for the same 
period, for a given department or product; will show costs 
of materials and labor, and the proportion of overhead charges 
that make up the cost of a single job or a given product. Such 
results may even be charted and shown in graphic form to 
the management each month. Other records will come up 
weekly or even daily. As accounting is the means by which 
is ascertained the exact condition of the business at a given 
time, the systematized management recognizes the importance 
of this information. Much of this accounting, however, is 
done with the ultimate end of securing correct costs, and these 
cost data are relied upon almost wholly, (i) to establish the 
selling price, and (2) to point out excessive costs and indicate 
perhaps where they may be reduced. Many believe that 
when their accounting is well done they have a systematized 
and efficient plant, but this really covers one phase only of 
the management. 

Frequently, too, the clerical work in the different depart- 
ments is not a part of the general accounting, and is not con- 
trolled by the ledger accounts. In other words, the same 
general system of accounting does not permeate the whole 
plant and help to support itself. 

B. Purchasing. Materials and supplies are purchased 
through one man or department, a maximum and minimum 
generally established, and a decided effort made to purchase 
the materials best suited to the workrooms. Some analytic 
methods are used in determining the proper materials, and 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 12 1 

standardizing is done on the more important kinds. This 
purchasing department aims to have a stock of everything 
required, but buys largely what it is asked to. It does not 
always make purchases on complete specifications, and a 
lack of complete standardization increases the detail of that 
department. So far as the clerical system is developed, 
however, it is generally quite good. 

You will recall the words of a well-known railroad president 
some time ago who stated, before the Interstate Commerce 
hearings, that the railroads had reached their ultimate end 
of efficiency. It is interesting in the light of this statement 
to note an example of efficiency in purchasing by one system 
of railroads, which has been acknowledged to me by railroad 
officials as leading in this particular department. This is the 
purchasing as done by Mr. Thorne, who buys over $40,000,000 
worth of materials annually for the Union Pacific and South- 
ern Pacific railroad systems. One characteristic of Mr. Harri- 
man when he took over a railroad was that he would go to 
any expense in order to standardize every bit of material 
used. Mr. Thorne is the man who carried this out. In a 
letter the other day he told me that in the standardization 
of printed forms alone he had saved over 30 per cent in the 
purchase of that particular commodity. In standardizing 
these forms he reduced them in number, specifying certain 
standard sizes of paper, type, and other conditions to be fol- 
lowed, and I have no doubt that in his other purchases his 
methods have secured a great saving over those of competing 
roads. 

C. Storage of Materials. A marked contrast to the storage 
methods of the unsystematized plant will be seen at once. Here 
is an adequate room in charge of a storekeeper who issues 
stores only on requisitions, and is expected to keep his place 
neat and orderly and deliver his stores on call. A perpetual 
list is kept in the office and balanced with the stores, and the 
balance is proved by an actual count of the stores once a year 
or oftener. Stores are partially classified and standardized 
to some extent. It is only the most-used stores that are 



122 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

assigned to orders before actually called for. The physical 
handling of the stores, moving them in and out of the store- 
room, is done by the assistants of the storekeeper and the 
efficiency of this work and the orderliness of the department 
depend wholly upon the kind of man in charge. The central 
office can exercise very little real control in this department. 

Not all systematized plants control work from a central 
planning station by writing the operations for each process 
before the work is started ; therefore materials are not exactly 
predetermined and work is still likely to be started before 
it is discovered that some material is lacking. Neither are 
the quantities always kept up automatically through the 
purchasing department by a predetermined maximum and 
minimum of each kind. Also, it is general practice to have 
storage space for different departments, some of which are 
not under control of the office; for instance the miscellaneous 
supplies used for the power department for repairs, piping 
and plumbing, electrical maintenance, etc., may be scattered 
about with little idea of order, while the actual materials for 
use in manufacture may be in good order. 

D. Execution of Work. A complete set of order-cards for 
recording and transmitting orders is in use. The worker 
receives a written order for the work he is to do. This seldom 
takes the form of an instruction card giving him complete 
information for every move and every tool. It is apt to say 
•what the work is, assuming that he will do it in a satisfactory 
manner. Workers almost always record their time for each 
job on a card, which registers the labor cost accurately. They 
do not always register the time lost in securing tools, materials 
and further instructions. The planning of a job, except in 
plants where the work is very largely repetition, is likely to 
be done as the work proceeds. Piece-work is used wherever 
possible, and is considered the most economical way of per- 
forming a given operation. It is the aim of most systematized 
plants to secure as much piece-work as possible. This may 
be unfair for different kinds of work to both employees and 
employer. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 



123 



Under systematized management the system keeps things 
running smoothly, avoids most of the mistakes due to the 
lax methods of the first kind of management and turns 
out a good product. But a lack of centralized planning and 
centralized control of the workers causes loss of efficiency. 

E. Efficiency of the Worker. The emphasis of systematized 
management is laid on costs, freedom from errors and bad 
work, and the greatest output per man and per machine that 
can be secured. The standard for this output is generally 
established by the opinions or experience of the bosses, who 
have neither the time nor the training to ascertain it by 
exact methods. Great emphasis is put upon the installation 
of new and modern machinery, but there is not very much 
analytical work done by the management to ascertain whether 
the worker is working in the very best possible way, or whether 
he is adapted to the particular job he is given. The person 
who has charge of the employment considers that there are 
four classes of people, — men, women, boys and girls. If 
the foreman wants a girl, that is sufficient information for the 
one in charge of the employment, and a girl is hired and 
assigned. Little or no thought is given to the question 
whether that particular girl is the right one for the task. 

For instance, in bookbinding there are different kinds of 
work. Laying gold leaf calls for a girl with small fingers and 
a delicate touch. Strength is not required. Another opera- 
tion calls for a large, strong girl, who can easily handle bundles 
of work weighing seven or eight pounds. In proofreading the 
time reaction of seeing a word and grasping its meaning is a 
very important feature. Other girls doing inspection must 
have the ability to concentrate their minds on one particular 
operation. The different kinds of work demand girls selected 
with special reference to their aptitude for their particular 
work. In every factory will be found workers in one depart- 
ment who cannot successfully do their work, but who could 
successfully do work of another kind. The scientific selection 
of the worker is almost unknown in the systematized plant, and 
this fact alone makes impossible the highest efficiency. 



124 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

When I think over the psychology of industrial workers, I 
am reminded of my own experience in college. In the psy- 
chological laboratory tests were made on all my class. I had 
the quickest time reaction from seeing a flash of light to mus- 
cular action in pressing a button; I had the slowest time 
reaction in the class to seeing a word, comprehending its 
meaning, and then pressing a button which registered the 
time it had taken me to see and comprehend its meaning. 
This experiment showed the reason why I was the slowest 
reader in my class and why on a given task in reading, in 
literature or any other subject, I took longer than any one 
else. While not a sprinter, my record for the fifteen-yard 
dash has never been beaten, — not because I was a fast 
runner, but simply because the time reaction to muscular 
effort enabled me to get off more quickly after the pistol 
shot than any one else. I never could have made a proof- 
reader, or earned my salt as a bookkeeper, but I think I 
should have made a tolerably good motorman. 

The step from unsystematized management to systematized is 
a difficult one because it generally means a more radical change 
in the personnel of the supervisory force than does the other 
step. The unsystematic manager is likely to associate with 
him men of a similar type. To do one's work in a systematic 
way is not wholly a matter of training, and the foremen and 
superintendents in a thoroughly unsystematized plant cannot 
always develop the habit of working by means of system. 
The unsystematized plant still remains, either because its com- 
petitors are in the same condition or because there is a large 
difference between costs and selling price, or because the 
business is dominated by one or more strong characters whose 
ability in other phases of their work more than makes up for 
their lack in organizing ability. Sooner or later, however, 
this class of industries will be forced to change or be eliminated. 
This has already taken place in a number of industries, as 
for example, the manufacture of shoes. 

Twenty-five or thirty years ago there were more shoe shops 
than there are today. The competition in manufacturing 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 125 

shoes and the intricacy of the detail have made it impossible 
for the unsystematized plant to grow beyond the limit of the 
single foremanship plan, with the result that only the systema- 
tized plants could increase. The others were absorbed or 
ceased to be, and today there is probably not an unsystema- 
tized plant engaged in the manufacture of shoes. Indeed, 
some few shoe manufacturing concerns are developing Scien- 
tific Management very rapidly in all their departments. And 
what has happened to the shoe industry is now happening to 
other industries which are in the transitional period through 
which the shoe manufacturing industry passed twenty or 
twenty-five years ago. 

III. Scientific Management. A. Accounting. The 
accounting under Scientific Management shows the manufac- 
turing and expense accounts for the year by thirteen periods 
of four weeks each, instead of twelve monthly periods, and 
at the expiration of each of these periods it shows the profit 
and loss and assets and liabilities. These in the unsystema- 
tized plant are shown yearly, and not always in the systema- 
tized plant are they shown even monthly. Further, the group 
and unit costs of the various products, the cost and output of 
each department and all expenses which might be applied 
directly to the product, are shown in full, and the "compara- 
tive" features are much more useful because four-week periods 
give a more equal basis for comparison. A monthly state- 
ment as shown by the books in the systematized accounting 
does not give an accurate comparison because, for instance, 
some months will have five pay-rolls where others have four, 
and the number of working days varies by quite a per cent 
because there may be five Sundays or five Saturday half-days. 

In substance, the general accounts of the company are 
shown in more complete form every four-week period than is 
shown by the yearly accounting in the systematized class. The 
ledger accounts have absolute control over the stores depart- 
ment, over the quantity and value of stores, work and materials 
in process, and manufactured goods ; and as every department 
and function of the manufacturing coordinates with every 



126 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

other, the accounting becomes a part of the very bone and 
fiber of the manufacturing. 

One radical difference in point of view is that the ascer- 
taining of costs does not have a special system installed for 
just that purpose, and the ascertaining of costs is not the end 
sought. Under Scientific Management costs come as a by- 
product of the means used for increasing efficiency. For 
instance, a ticket made up in the central planning depart- 
ment, when combined with the instruction card, serves to 
plan the work in advance; then it is used to control the order 
of work by being placed on a bulletin board; then it gives the 
workman his particular piece of work to do with the instruc- 
tions how to do it. On this ticket is stamped the time at 
which the work is begun and when it ends. This same ticket 
then serves to check off the progress of the work on the route- 
sheet. Then it goes to the accounting department from which 
the man's pay is made up. It is then redistributed and 
furnishes the labor cost of the particular operation on the 
cost-sheet of the job. From cost-sheets similar to this are 
summarized not only the cost on all jobs, but department 
expenses and charges which appear in each four-week period 
statement. 

In other words, the mechanism used under systematized man- 
agement for ascertaining costs performs little other work; 
under Scientific Management it has performed its part in 
producing work, and from it, as a by-product, so to speak, 
come the costs. 

The ascertaining of costs by this method is done with but 
little more expense than is necessary for handling the regular 
work of operation. Too much emphasis cannot be placed 
on the value of the comparative feature in accounting. Com- 
parisons are a great spur to increased efficiency, and this fact 
is recognized as well in the systematized management. For 
example: a certain group of department stores, each doing a 
business in a different city and non-competitive, have found 
such good results from uniform accounting methods and the 
information that comes from comparison, that they jointly 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 127 

employ an accountant who collects the monthly reports in 
detail from these stores so as to make a comparison by items, 
and then prints these data for the use of the management of 
each' store. 

For instance, one manager finds that Department A in his 
store did $50,000 worth of business the preceding month, had 
$35,000 worth of stock on hand, and is shown in detail what 
the labor and other expense items of that department were. 
He sees that another store did $55,000 worth of business in 
Department A and had a stock of but $20,000. He immedi- 
ately summons his buyer and informs him of the result of 
this comparison, and asks why he cannot do as well as the 
buyer in the other store and release $15,000 of capital now 
tied up in stock. The knowledge of what can be done and 
is done by the other store is often sufficient stimulus in itself 
to cause to be accomplished what otherwise would not be 
considered possible. 

The expense and frequently the shutdowns for the purpose 
of the annual stock-taking are eliminated under Scientific 
Management, because the accounting absolutely controls the 
movement of materials in and out of the stores department, 
so its records show at all times the amount in stores and this 
value can be ascertained when desired. The work of proving 
the items of stores is done continuously, and the days, which 
often become weeks and months, that elapse before even 
large and well-organized concerns get the results of their stock- 
taking become a thing of the past. One large concern which 
is a customer in a business in which I am interested finished 
its year of stock-taking January 1, and it was early in 
August of this year before it got the results and knew how 
much stock it had on hand January 1. The same will apply 
to the amount of materials and labor in process, which 
the systematized management finds even a harder problem to 
handle, and also to the value of manufactured goods. 

B. Purchasing. Scientific Management is not satisfied 
merely to have plenty of materials on hand when wanted, to 
roughly standardize the principal items of stock used and to 



128 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

buy at the market rate, but demands that all materials be 
carefully studied with reference to — 

First. The greatest adaptability to the work. 

Second. Quality and. uniformity. 

Third. Price. 

Fourth. Determination of the proper maximum and mini- 
mum that shall be carried, so that the stores department may 
automatically govern materials and supplies which should 
always be on hand. 

When this has been done, care is taken to make all pur- 
chases on detailed specifications. The importance of using 
materials best suited to the work and which are uniform in 
quality and by standardization reduced to the smallest vari- 
ety, is not sufficiently appreciated by the buyer in even the 
systematized plant. 

For example, a manufacturer of razors using a thin blade 
could not secure a steel which would always act alike and 
produce a uniform result with uniform treatment. He em- 
ployed a steel expert of reputation to assist him. This expert 
purchased the best razors that different barbers had, analyzed 
them chemically and microscopically and, as every man who 
uses a razor might guess, found very great variation even in 
the same makes. In fact, he satisfied himself that no razor 
manufacturer, however well-systematized his plant was, had 
ever scientifically determined the best steel, or had purchased 
it on a formula that would standardize this material. As a 
result, all these years the buying of a razor had been a lottery. 

After many tests this expert secured from various steel 
manufacturers samples of steel on their formulae and his 
own, and he finally developed a formula that would give the 
best razor steel known and maintain it uniform. As a result 
of this method of buying this manufacturer stood alone among 
the razor producers of the country in ability to produce razor 
blades of standard quality. If all his methods are as scientific 
as this, it is doubtful whether his competitors will ever over- 
take the lead he has secured. This is not an extreme example 
by any means. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 129 

Another illustration of the standardizing of materials. In 
studying the supplies of a business it was found that there 
were twelve kinds of wrapping paper regularly used and an 
investment of $2,500 was needed to carry a sufficient amount. 
This was standardized and now the twelve kinds of paper 
have been reduced to four, with a saving of $1,000 in the 
stock, 60 per cent in the storage space occupied, and the 
available worth of this paper for the demands that may be 
made on it is 20 per cent more than what it was formerly. 
This illustrates the saving made on but one class of material 
used in a factory where standardization is being worked out. 

Such methods of purchasing compel the purchasing depart- 
ment to be intimately associated with the working of the 
materials through manufacture, and result in the following: 

First. Uniform material best adapted to the work saves 
labor and delay in workrooms. 

Second. Minimum of kinds and sizes necessary to be 
carried. 

Third. Storage space saved. 

Fourth. Lower costs through buying in larger lots. 

C. Storage of Materials. The physical aspects of a store- 
room under Scientific Management do not differ greatly from 
those in the systematized. A proper means of holding or piling 
the stores, laid out in an orderly fashion, is provided. To 
avoid confusion in a varied terminology, mnemonic symbols 
are used to designate the different kinds of stores. The maxi- 
mum and minimum mentioned above are determined for each 
kind, and kept on the ledger sheets in the central planning 
room. The bookkeeping for the stores is not carried on in 
the storeroom, the storeroom force simply acting on orders. 
The location of the materials is also indicated on the ledger 
sheets, or, as they are known, the balance of stores sheets. 

The storeroom in the systematized plant is not likely to carry 
all the materials and supplies used in the entire plant. The 
engine-room, plumbing and construction supplies may be 
carried in places provided for them, but not controlled as 
other materials are. Stationery and office forms and supplies 



130 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

may be carried somewhere else under a different system. 
Even in well-systematized plants such items as are not con- 
sidered a part of the general stores system cause more or less 
trouble by being used up unexpectedly. 

Under Scientific Management it is not sufficient, when 
materials are required, to send a requisition to the stores 
department, but all orders or work which require material 
have the items looked up and assigned to the specific orders 
by the balance of stores clerks, and this material when as- 
signed to a given order is not available for another order which 
may follow. This is done before the materials are required 
for use, and this method serves as advance warning to the 
stores clerks if an unexpected demand for a particular material 
is likely to occur. Quick action is then possible in purchasing 
more. 

The work of moving materials into the stores department 
and moving them from the stores department to the particular 
place where they are to be used, becomes a function of the 
planning of the work, and of the routing of the work, and the 
workman who is to use them should not be delayed or have 
to give a thought to the materials which he needs for his next 
job. They are moved in the right condition for his use to 
the point where he can use them to the best advantage. The 
time which the workman spends looking for or waiting for 
his materials can be better spent in effective work. The 
proper working of the stores department in many industries, 
and especially in mercantile establishments, is a very impor- 
tant one. 

D. Execution of Work. The theory of the proper execution 
of work is that it should be planned completely before a single 
move is made, — that a route-sheet which will show the names 
and order of all the operations which are to be performed 
should be made out and that instruction cards should be 
clearly written for each operation. Requisitions on the stores 
department showing the kind and quality of the materials 
and where they should be moved, and lists of proper tools for 
doing the work in the best way, should be made up for each 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 131 

operation, and then by time-study the very best method 
and apparatus for performing each operation is determined 
in advance, and becomes a part of the instruction. 

By this means the order and assignment of all work, or 
routing as it is called, should be conducted by the central 
planning or routing department. This brings the control of 
all operations in the plant, the progress and order of the work, 
back to the central point. Information which even in the 
systematized plant is supposed to be furnished by the knowl- 
edge of the workman or the gang-boss or foreman, is brought 
back to the planning room and becomes a part of the instruc- 
tion card. 

In many unsystematized plants no attempt is made to change 
the method by which the workman performs his operations. 
Plenty of time and money may be spent on special machinery, 
but when that is installed very little time is spent in a close 
analytical study of the time elements and motions involved 
in operating, in order to make it possible for the workman to 
work in the easiest and best way and to furnish a fair basis 
of remuneration. 

When the analytical study has been made, the probable 
time of operation determined, and a sufficient incentive has 
been added in the shape of a bonus for performing the work 
in the given time and in the way specified, then work can be 
much more accurately controlled from the central planning 
room because it is likely to be done in approximately the time 
determined and without lagging. 

By functional foremanship, which has been described by 
previous speakers, the management brings to bear on each 
phase of the work a man particularly fitted by selection, 
training and experience to assist in performing that part of 
the work. His function is to assist the worker and cooperate 
with him to enable him to increase his earning capacity by 
eliminating trouble or delays or wrong methods. Even in 
the well-managed systematized plant the manager will tell 
you that the weak point in his business is the inability to 
secure good foremen, or good superintendents. He demands: 



I 3 2 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

First. That a foreman shall know all about the work which 
is done in his department. 

Second. That he be a good disciplinarian. 

Third. That he have the ability to crowd work through 
and get it out quickly. 

Fourth. That he be cautious and accurate. 

Fifth. That he be able to keep account of innumerable 
details. 

To find all these qualities combined successfully in one man 
is exceedingly difficult, to train such men is also difficult, and 
to secure them by natural selection and "survival of the 
fittest" takes too long; but to train men for functional fore- 
manship by selecting the best man fitted to do the particu- 
lar function and then training him in that, is simply one 
kind of division of labor which has marked the progress of 
civilization. 

The execution of work which is largely repetition, where 
the individual processes are simple, reaches a very high effi- 
ciency in many systematized plants. The difficulties in secur- 
ing efficiency increase as the work becomes more varied and 
with less proportion of it repeat-work, and in proportion as 
these difficulties increase ordinary systems fail to produce 
results in more intricate work. This can be attained, how- 
ever, by the central planning room from the analysis and 
time-study which is put into all operations of work and 
reduced to instruction cards. 

E. Efficiency of the Worker. On many simple operations in 
manufacturing, piece-work has always been considered the 
most efficient method of securing output and low costs, and 
it is true that where the remuneration is a just one and when 
the employee is supplied with proper materials and works to 
the best advantage, this method of performing work approaches 
very close to that of Scientific Management; but such condi- 
tions of piece-work are the ideal rather than the usual. As 
stated above and emphasized by previous speakers, piece- 
work with prices based on the snap judgment of a foreman or 
by an imperfect test of a single worker, is not the correct 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 133 

method to secure the greatest efficiency. Besides this, there 
are many kinds of work which are not adapted to piece-work. 
Under Scientific Management the efficiency of the worker and 
machine depends on five other conditions, after assuming that 
the parts of the management which have to do with pur- 
chasing, storage of materials, etc., are well performed. These 
conditions are: 

First. Analysis and synthesis of the elements of operation. 

Second. Scientific selection of the worker. 

Third. Training of the worker. 

Fourth. Proper tools and equipment. 

Fifth. Proper incentive. 

First. The first condition on which the efficiency of the 
worker depends is that the management shall analyze care- 
fully and thoroughly every operation into its ultimate elements; 
shall then reconstruct those elements in their proper sequence, 
eliminating those which are unnecessary or those which are 
bad, and reducing the form to a written instruction card for 
him to follow; the time elements having been determined and 
becoming a part of the instruction card. It is interesting to 
see what develops when one really begins to study a seemingly 
simple operation. The motion-study alone of bricklaying 
makes possible the ehmination of sixteen unnecessary mo- 
tions. The change in location of a machine which was oper- 
ated by a girl who sat with her back to an aisle where 
heavy trucking was done caused an increase of 25 per cent 
in her work. Every time she heard a truck approaching she 
involuntarily shuddered, probably wondering if the truck 
would strike her. Removing this operator to a quiet corner 
caused the increase. 

One factory doing light manufacturing has lately put some 
time into studying what have always been considered simple 
operations. In certain places a differently shaped receptacle 
was made for the articles on which work was being done, 
bringing the pieces within six inches of the left hand, whereas 
for years before the worker had had to reach for these and 
occasionally stop work to bring the articles farthest away 



134 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

within reach with a sort of hoe. Other operations in this 
plant have been simplified by changing the position of some 
workers so that the porter who supplies materials can do 
so without interrupting and causing a stop in the work several 
times a day. A study of extra steps and little delays by an 
intelligent observer is a necessary work before the greatest 
efficiency can be secured. When all these analyses have been 
reduced to writing, a study of the type best fitted to do this 
work is made. 

Second. Scientific Selection of the Worker. The type of 
worker who physically and mentally is best fitted to do a 
kind of work must be selected after a careful analysis of that 
class of operations made with reference to the physiological 
and mental differences in human beings. The difference in 
output and quality of work has been found to vary as much 
as 40 per cent or 50 per cent in a group of men or women 
engaged on the same kind of work. As they were of ap- 
parently equal intelligence and education, this could be 
explained only by the physiological and mental differences. 
As a result of time-study and motion-study of various groups 
of operations in one large manufacturing plant, it has been 
found that there are so many workers performing a kind of 
work to which they are not suited, but who might excel in 
another kind of work, that the management has laid plans to 
establish classes to instruct workers to do another kind of 
work better adapted to their capacities. 

Of two different departments, A and B, for instance — 
A containing thirty girls and B twenty — it has been found 
that over 20 per cent in A are unfitted for that kind of work, 
but would be fitted for work in B, and vice versa. A scientific 
selection of the workers is possible only from the analysis of 
operations. The effectiveness of this will be greater when 
the principles of the psychology of working and kinds of work 
are better understood by industrial managers. 

The psychology of advertising has lately been coming to 
the front. The psychology of industrial workers is still a 
great field for research. The vocational schools will not 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 135 

perform their true function properly until they come to a 
better knowledge psychologically of the mental and physi- 
cal requirements for different kinds of work, and are able 
by tests to determine in which their pupils are likely to be 
successes or failures. 

Scientific selection of the workmen is but a part; the scien- 
tific selection of foremen, of superintendents and managers is 
just as important. How frequently one sees a man struggling 
with the details of an office or with the wear and tear of execu- 
tive work, on the verge of nervous prostration, when that 
man is wholly unfitted for that kind of work and his attempts 
successfully to perform it result in his undoing. If managers 
themselves knew how to judge a man's fitness for his work and 
were more observing, there would be many less breakdowns 
and physical wrecks than there are now. 

Third. Training of the Worker. Having first carried out 
the study of the operation which has pointed the way to the 
proper selection of the worker, it becomes the duty to train 
the worker to do the work in the way which the result of the 
analysis has shown to be the best way. This will be accom- 
plished by a functional foreman whose duty it is to train the 
workmen and help them on each job to get started right. If 
they fail to do the task in the time fixed it is the duty of the 
functional foreman to find out why they have failed, and to 
help them do the work as it should have been done. This is 
a wide departure from the old school, which assumes that 
the journeyman has sufficient knowledge to do his own work 
in the most efficient manner. In the training of workmen it 
is interesting to see how they develop through an aroused 
interest and cooperation of those over them. 

Fourth. Proper Tools and Equipment. The fourth condi- 
tion is that the worker be supplied with the best tools and 
just the ones needed for the particular operation, and supplied 
when needed; that he be given the best machine, main- 
tained in first-class condition, so that machine, belt and tool 
failures will be reduced to the minimum. To maintain the 
machinery, etc., in this condition is a duty of the manage- 



136 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

merit, and Scientific Management provides the means with 
which to do this. 

Fifth. Proper Incentive. Sufficient incentive should be 
given the worker to perform the operation or the task that has 
been set in the given time. To make this possible for the 
worker, functional foremanship is necessary and the principal 
object of such functional foreman is to assist the worker and 
eliminate trouble or delay. The functional foreman trained 
to his specialty will do this more effectively than the old- 
fashioned all-around foreman. Examples have been given 
by previous speakers of relative increase in efficiency of the 
worker as a result of Scientific Management. Of course such 
relative increases in output cannot be considered universal. 
Certain machines are not mechanically able to run at double 
or triple their former speeds, but Scientific Management tends 
to lessen the numberless little delays which the condition of 
the machine, of the material to be worked upon, or the in- 
structions to the worker, may have been responsible for. 

It must be to the financial interest of the worker to be 
industrious, and it has been shown to be for the interest of 
the management to do everything to make possible and 
profitable this increased industry of the worker, thereby 
gaining a more uniform output, and an output per man or 
machine which is maintained more uniformly in dull or busy 
times. 

There is another feature which is of interest; that is, if the 
worker engaged on the task and bonus does not receive his 
materials promptly and on time, if his machine is not in the 
condition it should be, or there are other avoidable delays, 
the worker has sufficient interest in the probable loss of his 
bonus to make a serious kick, and it is the duty of the 
gang-boss to immediately right this trouble. Therefore, 
the workman and the boss are together demanding of the 
management that as nearly as possible perfect working 
conditions be maintained. 

Conclusion. The central planning and control of work 
which is such a vital part in Scientific Management is not 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 137 

developed to the same degree in the systematized. In systema- 
tized plants where complete planning is attempted, however, 
the instructions and orders particularize what is to be done 
rather than how it is to be done. 

In the systematized plant the system in one department has 
been planned especially for that department, and is not a 
part of the system framework which pervades the whole, as 
in Scientific Management, and it is a constant fight to main- 
tain such independent systems and especially to change and 
modify them with changed conditions or the increased growth 
of the business. 

In closing let us see the effects of this type of management 
in general on the plant, the product, the worker and the 
management. 

Plant. Scientific Management furnishes the machinery for 
maintaining the plant in better condition by centralizing the 
control, by the use of such devices as the standing order file 
in which are collected and reduced to writing and properly 
indexed the practices and rules of the company. From it, 
by listing and making a certain program of things to be done, 
— the departments, machinery, shafting, drains, gutters, 
etc., to be inspected — this program can be handled month 
after month by routine in a manner which the management 
has carefully predetermined. To attend to the maintenance 
of a plant in this way is working to prevent delay and expense 
rather than cure it afterwards. For instance, eliminating de- 
lays due to belt failures, shaft-boxes which have been over- 
looked and run dry, and indefinite inspection of premises, 
pipe lines, traps, etc., tends to save expense by preventing 
trouble. 

Product. The product of such a plant should be more 
uniformly even, and there should be fewer mistakes and less 
inferior work. Once a standard is set for each operation, 
that standard can be maintained. It costs little more to 
maintain a high standard under these conditions than a low 
one under old conditions. 

The Worker. The condition of a worker's mind has a very 



138 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

large effect on his physical being. There is a psychological 
effect on a worker in having the work divided into definite 
tasks, each one having its goal in sight and sustaining effort 
to that time. The piece-workers in one plant in which I am 
interested were interviewed by a woman journalist at the time 
so much publicity was given to Scientific Management by the 
hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and 
she asked them how they liked the task and bonus. They 
said they didn't know why it was, but they liked it; they 
were earning more. But that was not all: the piece-work 
flowing to them in an unending stream had been discouraging; 
there was something they could not understand, but when it 
was broken up into definite lots they liked it much ;better. 
You can discourage any man by setting him to work with a 
pick and shovel and telling him to shovel away a hill. He 
knows he can never get it done, but if you say; "Here, you 
shovel so many tip-carts full in a day, or in a given time, 
and you will have a certain percentage of increase of pay 
for that time," you have changed the point of view, and that 
man every time he finishes a tip-cart full has accomplished 
a definite task. His effort is sustained for that time, and he 
is going to be able to sustain that effort in the future. That 
is one reason why profit-sharing among the working classes is 
almost an absolute failure so far as increased efficiency is con- 
cerned; the time of sustained effort for a year or six months 
is too long. Neither can a worker do his best work who is 
nagged by a foreman, who has been given insufficient instruc- 
tions and is fearful lest he is doing his work wrong, and who, 
having made a mistake, is jumped on, oftentimes perhaps 
unjustly. He is not in a frame of mind to do his best work 
if he wishes to. 

In one factory there was great difficulty in keeping the 
women workers in a certain department. They were either 
unwilling to continue to work or frequently gave out, and it 
was a puzzle for some time to find out what the trouble was. 
When the analysis and time-study were put into this depart- 
ment, it was found that part of the trouble was due to the 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 139 

fact that they were not earning so much as workers in adjacent 
departments, that they were nagged by the foreman who did 
not understand how to handle help, and that they were work- 
ing at a disadvantage in the arrangement of their work places. 
The first step was to fit up their places so they could work 
to the best advantage. A time-study then showed that by 
working according to instructions they could easily do 50 
per cent more work. To insure the work being well done, 
one of the best girls was selected as an inspector and given 
charge of their work, the foreman having nothing to do with 
them. A few of the girls were tried on the extra work, — 
working under the constant instruction of the time-study 
man and being paid an additional amount. 

All the girls who were physically fitted for this kind of work 
tried the extra amount, which they did easily. The result 
of the extra pay, freedom from the nagging of the foreman, 
and easier working conditions, immediately stopped the diffi- 
culty in keeping workers in this department. One or two of 
these workers, according to the report of the factory nurse, 
have gained weight since this change was made. 

After this had been in effect for a while, the constant request 
of one girl that she be allowed to undertake one-third more 
work, or double the original amount, was granted with the 
approval of the factory nurse, who watched her closely. This 
was a task not set by time-study, but one which the girl 
herself thought she could undertake. She found, however, 
that it was too much and gave it up voluntarily, but she is 
still doing 50 per cent more work than she was originally. 
She is a girl well fitted for the kind of work and for her a 
larger task could be given, but tasks are set with the idea of 
the average worker who is first selected for the particular 
kind of work. It must be considered that the effect of task 
and bonus work under the proper conditions tends to greater 
industry, better discipline, a happier disposition and greater 
interest in work on the part of the workers. Greater regu- 
larity, greater accuracy and neatness must and do have an 
influence on health and character. 



140 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Management. It is probable that the point of view of 
heads of departments and those responsible for the manage- 
ment becomes quite as much changed as that of the workers. 
When mistakes are made the responsibility is fixed and the 
management cannot dodge the fact. A manager also realizes 
as never before the value that must be placed on analysis. 
As Mr. Taylor once said: "Thought under Scientific Manage- 
ment is 75 percent analysis and 25 per cent common sense." 

When a seemingly difficult operation has been analyzed 
to its last detail, it is not so difficult to reconstruct it on the 
proper fines. There is, too, an added interest to the manage- 
ment in the feeling that it is working on a plan, the underlying 
principles of which are already determined, and the details of 
which are to be developed in accordance with those principles 
more and more finely as years go by. 

It has been my pleasure to have employed a number of 
young college men. Before they start to work, while they 
are in the only impressionable period that exists after they 
leave college — that is, when they first come under the eye 
of the manager — I tell them that had I known or realized 
the comprehensive plan of work under which I am working 
now, an equivalent of three years of the hardest work I have 
ever done could have been saved. The hard work would 
not have been saved, but I should have been saved three 
years because I should have been working on a plan rather 
than groping around in the dark and formulating plans many 
of which have had to be abandoned. 

Probably many of you will say, "That sounds all right, but 
is not fitted for my business." I was very much interested 
to talk with a man who is the editor of one of the most pro- 
gressive magazines, who told me today that he had been using 
some of the apparatus which he had seen in use under Scientific 
Management. His work is editing. Editors have always 
said that their work is not subject to Scientific Management 
because their work does not deal with systems, — their 
work deals with brains. I was much pleased to have him 
tell me that he has constructed a bulletin board in his office 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 141 

with which he is planning his editorial work, so that already 
he has done four months work in one month and is up here 
for a two weeks vacation, or somewhere for a two weeks 
vacation, because he has that time which he never had had 
before under the old working conditions. Besides this saving 
in his own time, he has reduced the amount of money invested 
in a mass of paid articles, and now buys such only as are 
required for a given edition. 

Beneath all this there is a good deal of philosophy. It 
seems to me that this is the best solution of a fair compensa- 
tion for labor because it puts a premium on the efficiency of 
both employees and employer, and the success of Scientific 
Management depends upon this close cooperation of employer 
and employee. Along some such line it seems to me will 
sooner or later be worked out the great problems of labor 
and capital. 

The Chairman: The next speaker is to tell us about the 
spirit in which an employer should approach Scientific Man- 
agement. That is one of the most important topics of dis- 
cussion at this conference. Scientific Management is not to 
be bought and installed as is a boiler; what is bought de- 
pends upon the attitude of the executive force. Mr. Dodge 
has devoted his life to the invention and perfection of con- 
veying and hoisting machinery, and business men know very 
well the extraordinary success achieved by his companies in 
the industrial field. It is the success of Scientific Manage- 
ment. And his business represents success not alone as meas- 
ured by the balance sheet, but as measured in other important 
ways. The standards of business are the highest and never 
vary; there is nowhere a more loyal body of workmen; and 
there are no secrets about the methods which achieve the suc- 
cess. Over the front of his plant, in letters large enough to 
be read before one is close enough to read the firm name, is 
the sign visitors always welcome. Gentlemen, — Mr. 
James Mapes Dodge. 



142 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



THE SPIRIT IN WHICH SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
SHOULD BE APPROACHED 

By JAMES MAPES DODGE 
Chairman of the Board, The Link-Belt Company, Philadelphia 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

THE old saying that "each one of us endeavors to 
measure all things in his own pint pot," I am 
free to admit, applies very well to me, for while 
the title which has been assigned to me assumes a much 
broader treatment than a mere recital of personal feelings, 
the best I can do is to draw freely on personal experiences, 
disguising them by eliminating the personal pronoun and giving 
them an air of general application. In this endeavor, there- 
fore, let us talk of the spirit in which we approach Scientific 
Management. 

The term Scientific Management is possibly not the best; 
many establishments that can lay no claim to any comprehen- 
sive scheme of organization contain within them elements of 
successful management. Mr. Taylor in his treatise on the 
subject used the title "The Art of Management," while others 
in speaking of Mr. Taylor's work refer to it as a "Conserva- 
tion of Human Efforts through the Art of Management." 
Certainly, where human elements are introduced into a 
problem, scientific methods alone will hardly achieve a com- 
plete solution. It must be a combination of scientific analysis 
and methods plus consideration for the interest and well-being 
of the workers, and tact in meeting their inherent resistance 
to change, or their natural prejudice against something of 
which they do not understand the full import. Many con- 
cerns succeed because they have taken care of this human 
side of the problem, even though they lack scientific methods 
of procedure and exactness of information. Other concerns 
which expect to reduce management to an algebraic formula 
fail in the attempt because they neglect to foster growth and 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 143 

initiative in the working force. These concerns have lost sight 
of the human side of the problem. Truly Scientific Manage- 
ment takes account of both sides of the problem, and the 
method of approach should lie along both of these lines. 

The most primitive form of management exists in those 
establishments in which the owner "carries his office in his 
hat." When the establishment grows beyond the capacity 
of the contents of one hat, power and responsibility are 
delegated to others, until these too become overtaxed. 
Costs go up, deliveries fall off, and the necessity for 
a further distribution of authority and responsibility arises. 
This gradual delegation and subdivision of authority and 
responsibility is characteristic of what Mr. Taylor terms the 
"Military System of Management." Under it the shops are 
run almost entirely by the foremen, and the actual work is 
performed by men working under constant criticism and 
goading. The foremen have ideas of management more or 
less at variance with each other, but the proprietors accept 
the results as the best that can be obtained, without any 
proper or regular investigation. The workman who calls at 
the gate is supposed and expected to be an expert, requiring no 
instruction or help; the foreman is expected to know how to 
perform all the duties of his position, and the superintendent 
is assumed by the owner to know how to manage shop affairs 
to the practical limit of the possibilities. In such a form of 
management, criticism from the head goes completely down 
the line, gathering in vehemence and force as it proceeds, 
while praise extended from the top usually penetrates only 
as far as the superintendent's office. 

Despotic authority which manifests itself in harsh criti- 
cism or tyrannical treatment of the men is undoubtedly the 
characteristic feature of this form of management. Money 
returns are the only gage of success, and that foreman is 
best who can force from his men the greatest amount of work 
with the least possible compensation. From such methods 
the men have no redress except to seek employment elsewhere. 
The general recognition of the fact that the workmen have 



144 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

rights and that the remark, "You don't have to work here 
unless you want to" is not a proper answer to a legitimate 
complaint, is one of the factors which is creating a demand 
for a general change in methods of management. 

It is a serious thing for a worker who has located his home 
within reasonable proximity to his place of employment and 
with proper regard for the schooling of his children, to have 
to seek other employment and readjust his home affairs, with 
a loss of time and wages. Proper management takes account 
not only of this fact, but also of the fact that there is a dis- 
tinct loss to the employer when an old and experienced em- 
ployee is replaced by a new man who must be educated in 
the methods of the establishment. An old employee has, in 
his experience, a potential value that should not be lightly 
disregarded, and there should be, in case of dismissal, the 
soundest of reasons, in which personal prejudice or a tem- 
porary mental condition of the foreman should play no part. 

Constant changing of employees is not wholesome for any 
establishment, and the sudden discovery by a foreman that 
a man who has been employed for a year or more is "no good" 
is often a reflection on the foreman, and more often still, is 
wholly untrue. All workingmen, unless they develop intem- 
perate or dishonest habits, have value in them, and the con- 
serving and increasing of this value is a duty which should 
be assumed by their superiors. There is humor and sense in 
the declaration of the colonel in the Pirates of Penzance, 
"I lead my regiment from behind, I find it less exciting"; 
for instead of spurring men on by damning them from the 
front, it is more profitable and more effective in the industrial 
campaign to extend a helping hand to those in the rear, fur- 
nishing them with proper manual and mental equipment to 
keep up with their fellows. 

Under this method the most successful superintendents 
and foremen are those who can best aid and encourage 
their subordinates to make the most of themselves and their 
opportunities, removing obstacles from their paths and 
enabling them to earn greater rewards without overtaxing 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 145 

their mental and physical abilities. In other words, Scientific 
Management consists in the cultivation of the best produc- 
tive methods. Information can much more economically be 
ascertained by the leaders, and the knowledge transmitted 
to the workingmen, than it could be were each man to 
endeavor to ascertain it for himself. 

Probably with all of us it is more difficult to accept a modi- 
fication of a belief than to absorb a most startling or revolu- 
tionary new idea which does not call for any reversal of a 
notion to which we have tenaciously held. So in this matter 
of management it was, and is, and always will be essential 
for us to keep a hopeful equilibrium during transition from 
our old to our new love; and this transition period is certain 
to be a trying one. 

In the establishments with which I am connected conver- 
sion came slowly to nearly all, and some of those who, it would 
seem, should logically have accepted the innovation with 
avidity, seemed temperamentally incapable of such acceptance. 
Those who live entirely in the present, without thought of 
the future or of the past, can easily acquire the habit of doing 
things in a new way; but those having active minds are apt 
to waver between the necessity of advancing a decision and the 
fear of error born of caution and imagination. Even a measure 
of intelligence might show that an ardent accepter of Scientific 
Management and a man unalterably opposed to it in every 
form, are of the same brain capacity. There is temperamental 
sectarianism in every profession and walk of life, inexplicable 
because temperament is inexplicable. We all know men who 
feel that no one can do things for them as well as they can do 
them for themselves. It is, of course, possible that there 
are certain things that the individual can do for himself better 
than any one else can do them for him; but there are, un- 
doubtedly, thousands of things which can be better done for 
him by others. Should a man decide that before he looks 
at an eclipse he must become a thorough astronomer, he will, 
of course, eventually gain more from looking at the eclipse 
than those who rush out at first call and are satisfied to wonder 



146 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

at the phenomenon; but this same temperament might lead 
a man, if taken sick, to study the medical art until he had be- 
come a graduate physician, or to decline to deposit his money 
in a bank until he had mastered the intricacies of banking, 
and so on in all the accepted matters of our lives. So it 
is with some in considering the question of management; 
instead of investigating in an open-minded way the logic and 
results, they elect to question every minor step and consider 
that they must be accorded a complete vindication and proof 
of the other man's ideas before they are willing to lessen 
their grip on preconceived and opposing convictions. In 
other words, we haven't mental legs enough to permit us to 
maintain a position of straddling both sides of every presented 
question. It is therefore essential, in order to use the new 
system of management, that a man have within him a desire 
to travel in that direction, and that he aid to the best of 
his ability in the removal of small, real or imaginary obstruc- 
tions, rather than hold back and allow all his progress to be 
brought about by the pressure of the breeching, or the pull 
at the halter. As a matter of fact, it seems that all of us need 
Scientific Management. If we naturally have it in sufficient 
quantity we certainly need what we have, but may not need 
any more. If we have none at all, it would be absolutely 
ridiculous to say that we could not make good use of some. 
The degree and quantity are regulated, possibly, not so much 
by our thoughts as by the invincible logic of progress and 
existing conditions. 

It would of course be ridiculous for an employer of one 
man to undertake the introduction of Mr. Taylor's "Art of 
Management," but if he were familiar with some of the under- 
lying principles promulgated by Mr. Taylor, it would un- 
doubtedly be of value to him. The question of exactly 
how large an establishment should be or how small an estab- 
lishment may be to introduce Scientific Management in it 
with profit and success, is of course impossible of numerical 
answer, because it is dependent upon so many things. It 
might be likened to what we call civilization. There can be 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 147 

no dissent to the general statement that civilization is bene- 
ficial, but, if by civilization we mean everything in general 
and in detail that is properly a part of the system of civiliza- 
tion, it would be very difficult for any one to say, provided 
an uninhabited island were discovered in the Pacific Ocean, 
that in colonizing it, civilization in its fullest sense could be 
applied to five, ten, one hundred or some other definite number 
of people. At the same time, it is quite evident that even 
one person on this island would be immensely benefited by 
some elements of modern civilization. In fact, so important 
would it be to this individual that his very life might depend 
upon it. On the other hand, if some overwhelming power 
should decree that he must use every bit of civilization, his 
speedy demise would be absolutely certain; and so it is in 
the matter under discussion. Life is too short, individuals 
and people too circumscribed by their senses and surround- 
ings, to see, feel and believe that they need Scientific Manage- 
ment in its entirety. Nevertheless, no establishment is so 
small, no business so primitive, but that Scientific Manage- 
ment has details or suggestions that would be helpful. This 
would indicate that there is no way to define exactly the spirit 
with which each individual or establishment should approach 
this subject. It may for all time be governed by tempera- 
ment, training and the necessities of each individual case. 
Of course, if an individual has inquired into Scientific Manage- 
ment with a view to adding to his stock of ammunition with 
which to blow it up, and to pose among his friends as a per- 
son of superior intelligence because he says a few bitter or 
apparently clever things in opposition to the remarkable 
wave of managerial awakening throughout the civilized world, 
no good is gained; on the other hand unthinking, untrained 
acquiescence is probably equally wide of the mark, and only a 
conscientious investigation of the subject will indicate its 
value and its best plan of application. 

Let us assume that a man having heard of the "Taylor 
System" is possessed of the idea that he would like to find 
out something about it. It is more than likely that this 



148 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

individual has been in the commercial rather than in the 
practical side of manufacture, and he may be entertained 
because he has heard rumors that economy is effected and 
that profits are augmented by the system. Should he send 
for all the papers that have been published on this subject by 
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and read them, 
however carefully, I fear he would become somewhat con- 
fused, inasmuch as a great deal that has been written in these 
papers, not being directly in line with his personal training 
and experience, would be obscure and difficult of understand- 
ing. He would, however, gather from it that an effort for 
economical production had certainly been made, and that it 
is on different lines from those efforts which might be called 
"of an older school." On the other hand, should the indi- 
vidual be entirely of a mechanical or a manufacturing turn of 
mind and of only corresponding experiences, his reading of 
this literature would set in motion an entirely different train 
of thought. He would find much more in the papers intel- 
ligible to him, but as many of the statements would be 
apparently at variance with his own previous experience, 
he would be inclined to be very critical of minor details, 
although in general acquiescent with the main ideas of the 
papers. In both cases, however, there would be an awaken- 
ing of interest in the subject which would not be easily put 
to rest without further knowledge. 

Then would come a period of discussion with those having 
interest in the subject and the clarifying of a great deal which 
was at first obscure and vague. This result is brought 
about by a lapse of time, and time is as necessary an ele- 
ment in making a proper impression on the human mind 
as it is in making a proper actinic impression on a photo- 
graphic plate. In the latter case we have slow plates and 
quick plates, and they are acted upon by wide angle, tele- 
scopic and numerous other lenses; but human beings have 
the lenses of their senses sometimes out of focus, which 
has a potent influence in the registration of impressions 
upon their minds. After these impressions are registered, 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 149 

— some slowly, some quickly, some befogged by over- 
exposure, others deficient on account of under-timing — 
there comes another necessary and essential lapse of time, 
and that is in the development of the impressions, either in 
our brain or on the photographic plates, as the case may be. 
Now, this development is usually a much greater absorber 
of time than the mere registering of the impression; and then 
after the exposure and development comes another period, 
much longer still, and which may be never-ending, and during 
which proper use is made of the now developed impressions. 
Photographic failures are many, but probably not so numer- 
ous, proportionately, as mental failures; so we must make 
ample allowance for variations in the impressions which, 
apparently, the same exposures may make on different men- 
talities. 

It is almost needless for me to say that the mentality 
which would receive the initial impressions with proper speed 
and develop them into their most useful forms is the one that 
I must talk about, otherwise my task would be endless and 
your interest entirely used up. We will therefore assume 
that an individual has received proper impressions, that they 
have been properly developed, and that it has become his 
earnest desire properly to introduce Scientific Management 
into his establishment. The first step, even though he is the 
sole proprietor and theoretically can do exactly as he pleases, 
must of necessity be to interest some of his associates. This 
he will find, as I have previously stated, is not in every case 
an easy proposition, for the reason that temperamental differ- 
ences in individuals will require varying degrees and kinds of 
explanations, and the setting forth of the reasons in different 
mentally palatable ways. He will of course find, when he 
approaches his subordinates and they in various degrees 
accept his views with the feeling that something can be done 
of advantage to the establishment, that in no case will his 
leading men consider that anything in this new-fangled man- 
agement business should be in any way applied to them, 
though they can see with greater or less degree of certainty 



150 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

that it would be admirable for everybody else in the place. 
The problem of overcoming this mental condition is the 
most difficult of all. The very fact that the leading men of an 
establishment are beholden to their cleverness and independ- 
ence of thought for their promotion makes it certain that they 
will not hesitate to combat the views of their superior, if in 
their judgment it seems best. In other words, they are not 
disposed to take orders blindly and do that which they con- 
sider ill-advised or unnecessary. Consequently they will ask 
many questions, and probably it will be necessary and de- 
sirable to send some of the leading men out as investigators 
to go through other establishments and see for themselves 
what results have been obtained from the innovation. When 
they return they will not only have seen a good deal that will 
be entertaining to them, but will be in much better shape to 
discuss the subject further with their employer. 

Then comes the period of incubation of the best plan to 
pursue in beginning the actual work of the introduction of 
Scientific Management. If the establishment has good use 
for all of its leading men and they are properly and rationally 
busy, it is quite obvious that they cannot devote their time 
to the acquisition and introduction of all the details of Scien- 
tific Management, as well as keep up with their regular lines 
of work. Therefore it is desirable to call in the services of 
some one who can bring knowledge and experience to play, 
to begin the actual introduction. As soon as this is done 
two forms of activity manifest themselves; one, strange to 
say, not the easiest to regulate, is the well-meaning, unasked- 
for assistance to the introduction which usually takes the form 
of suggestion of improved methods in details that are clearly 
improvements in the mind of the suggester, but are impos- 
sible of acceptance on account of a conflict with other por- 
tions of the system to be introduced. This form of activity 
may be likened to a chorus in which many of the individuals 
decide that more or less volume of sound, or a change of 
tone or time, would be better than to follow the dictates of 
the leader and to sing the music as set before them. The other 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 151 

development is one either of open or sullen opposition. Fre- 
quently proper explanation and patience will overcome this 
form more easily than the other. The over-zealous cannot 
be properly curbed without their feeling that they have been 
"sat upon" or harshly dealt with. I am speaking of these 
as though they were phases which cropped up and could be 
disposed of. They can be disposed of in time, but again the 
time element comes in, and courage, patience and persever- 
ance are required on the part of those at the head of the 
concern to a much greater extent than would be dreamed of 
before they had had the experience. 

A great deal of care and thought must of course be given 
to maintain the business of the establishment in all its 
details while changes are being made, and to avoid having 
clashes and conflicting methods work hardship to the cus- 
tomers or to the profit-showing of the concern. It is quite 
obvious that it will be only a short time before two systems 
are being used in the same establishment, and it will require 
all the ability available to put up with this state of affairs 
until the new displaces the old; and probably this is the 
most trying time for the leading men all through the establish- 
ment, because in the stores department, order department, 
shipping department and, in fact, all the departments, extra 
work and vigilance are required of every one in order that 
the confusion may be reduced to its lowest point. In spite of 
everything, however, there will be days when it will take 
courage on the part of individuals, and, in fact, courage on 
the part of the whole management, to keep moving manfully 
ahead and not to be stampeded by the trying conditions. 
After a while, however, the benefits of the system will begin 
to manifest themselves so strongly and the new methods 
will reveal themselves so satisfactorily, that all will become 
buoyantly interested and work with redoubled vigor to hasten 
the entire consummation of the introduction. 

So far as the workmen themselves are concerned very little 
difficulty is experienced. It is essential, however, that the 
working-man should be told the exact truth, and under no 



152 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

circumstances should anything be done which has even the 
appearance of taking advantage of him. He must appre- 
ciate that his interests and those of his employer are 
mutual, and that their happiness and success depend upon 
mutual trust and consideration. If employers think that 
by the introduction of Scientific Management they can gain 
an advantage over the workers, they are making a serious 
mistake and wasting their efforts in what will eventually turn 
out to their great and lasting disadvantage. The whole 
scheme is one of mutual advancement and the corner-stone 
of the temple of the "Art of Management" is truth; the 
abutments must be truth, and every stone in the structure 
must be truth. 

Herbert Spencer said that there is a principle which is proof 
against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man 
in everlasting ignorance; this principle is to condemn before 
investigating. 



JFourtft Session 

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 
THE THIRTEENTH 

ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS 

THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
IN CERTAIN INDUSTRIES 



THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGE- 
MENT IN CERTAIN INDUSTRIES 

I. MACHINE MANUFACTURE 

Leader, H. K. HATHAWAY, 

Vice-President, The Tabor Manufacturing Co., Philadelphia 

MR. HATHAWAY: Many phases of Scientific Man- 
agement apply to the machine-shop, — among them 
standardization of tools and equipment, standard- 
ization of methods, standardization of machinery and ma- 
chines, the matter of time-study and its application to 
proper planning, and functional foremanship for increasing 
the output of machine operators. 

One of the first things we find it necessary to do, in apply- 
ing the principles of Scientific Management to the machine- 
shop, is to bring about standard conditions which will make 
it possible for us, through careful planning and administration 
of the work, to get from each machine the output of which it 
is capable. That means, briefly, in many cases respeeding 
the machines. Very few machines are properly speeded to 
run most efficiently. Mr. Barth has probably done more, 
and knows more, of that work than most of us. Standardiza- 
tion of the small-tool equipment, so that proper quantities of 
small tools may always be available, is another step. And 
following that we have the matter of time-study, setting tasks, 
and the institution of functional foremanship in place of the 
old-time foremanship. 

I ask Mr. Barth to say a few words on the subject of 
machine-tools. 

Mr. Barth: The work I have personally been doing in 
introducing Scientific Management in machine-shops might 

155 



156 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

be divided into two main parts. First we bring about an 
orderly procession of everything through the shop, so that 
every man at his machine or other post gets his work assigned 
to him by the planning department and not by his shop 
foreman. That is the preparatory stage, to last, say two 
years, before we do anything to increase the man's efficiency, 
or the efficiency of his machine. Next we look into what we 
can do with the man and the machine. In other words, we 
first bring the work into the procession we want it done, 
without asking the question whether it takes five minutes 
or five hours to do a job, or whether the workman can do it 
in ten minutes or fifteen. Then comes the great question: 
"Is each machine fitted for the work assigned to it in the con- 
dition it is in?" and it becomes a big and costly job, if we 
want things done right, to thoroughly investigate all the 
machinery, and on the strength of this to respeed and 
probably rebuild a good deal of it; yes, sometimes condemn 
some of it. Thus, for instance, we always find that lathes 
of the same size in a machine-shop have great variations in 
speeds and feeds. Each machine taken by itself is not con- 
sistently speeded, and compared with a machine of another 
maker it shows a considerable difference; while we want to 
have a certain group of machines alike in every respect so 
that a piece of work may be routed to any one of these with 
equal propriety, may be done on one under absolutely the 
same conditions as on another. 

In routing work we sometimes prepare months ahead, and in 
so doing frequently get a congestion at one or more machines 
in such a group; for unconsciously the clerks who do the 
routing get a sort of love for certain machines which they 
think will do the work in the best way. This necessitates a 
reassigning of work to other machines, and when these are 
not just like the machine to which the work was routed in the 
first place, it means modified instruction cards and new tasks 
to be set, — the delay, annoyance, and expense of which will 
far exceed the interest on a good sum of money invested in 
rebuilding and respeeding machines. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 157 

When some fine day in the future the machine-tool builders 
of this country get together and agree on standard speeds, 
feeds, T-slots, spindle-sockets, etc., etc., we shall build over 
old machines that are worth it to conform to these standards, 
and from then on a good deal of the expense we now incur 
will be unnecessary. 

Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the best way of conducting 
this meeting would be by the audience asking questions 
regarding the application of Scientific Management to 
machine-shops, and I, for one, stand ready to answer any 
question of that kind. 

Mr. Hathaway: I might say that my object in asking 
Mr. Barth to speak here is to bring out the importance 
of standardization in relation to Scientific Management. I 
think the matter of bolt-slots would be a good thing to begin 
with. 

Mr. Barth: The bolt-slot is one of the devices in machin- 
ery for holding the work, and the machine builders have abso- 
lutely no consistent rule about it. However, under Scientific 
Management it becomes necessary to standardize all such 
slots, and I have spent as high as $1,000 and $2,000 in 
so making all bolt-slots of nominally the same size, so nearly 
alike, that the same standard bolt would fit them all. When 
this is done we can get along with a limited number of these 
bolts in the tool- room, where they always will be maintained 
in good condition; whereas, when slots are not standard- 
ized, each machine must have a full supply at hand. These 
will not be properly looked after, and will therefore soon 
become so bad that greatly increased time will be required 
in putting them on the work. 

Mr. Schumaker : I had a question in mind when I came in ; 
it has been in part answered. Though I am very much inter- 
ested in machine manufacture, my interest is rather incidental, 
and from the standpoint of the repair-shop. I seem to be 
connected with the type of management which was described 
this afternoon as unsystematic. I should very much like to 
have Scientific Management. What is my first step? 



158 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Hathaway: Your first step is to acquaint yourself 
as far as possible with what Scientific Management is. I 
think one of the best ways to do that, after reading such 
literature as is available on the subject, is to visit plants 
where Scientific Management has already been installed. 
I can speak, of course, only for the Tabor Manufacturing 
Company with which I am connected, and I am glad to take 
this opportunity to say that we are always pleased to have 
any one interested in the subject visit us, and to show them 
everything we can about the matter. I extend to all of you 
an invitation to visit the Tabor Manufacturing Company. 
I am sure that Mr. Dodge would be glad to see at the 
Link-Belt plant any one interested in the subject. 

Mr. Lincoln: Approaching the subject from the side 
Mr. Schumaker has just mentioned, from the repair-shop, I 
suppose one of the first questions is, what is the expense of 
shifting over? 

Mr. Barth: It is almost impossible to answer that, because 
it depends on how much there is to be done. Of course the 
better managed the plant is already, and the better equipped it 
is, and the better the mental attitude is with reference to this 
subject, the less it costs. So it is impossible to fix any cost. 

Mr. Lincoln: I understand that. I presume any of us 
who have run shops of any description have all our lives 
attempted to run certain forms of scientific management; 
I mean the attempt has always been the production of work 
at the least possible cost. Now, then, for a person approaching 
the thing as a new subject the term Scientific Management 
has something of an academic sound, and I was wondering 
if there were any fundamental principles, say with reference 
to clerical work in connection with it, which you would not 
ordinarily find in the repair-shop. 

Mr. Barth : Yes, there is as a rule an increased expense in 
clerk help, in connection with decreased expense of a different 
nature. 

Mr. Lincoln: Now, the next point; is the decreased 
expense largely offset by the increased expense? 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 1 59 

Mr. Barth: It is a matter, not of added expense, but of 
changing the elements of the expense, with a total reduction 
in the cost of doing the work. For example, you do in the 
planning department a vast amount of work formerly done in 
the shop. Under the old type of management the workman 
who runs out of a job frequently finds it necessary to look up 
his foreman to get his next job assigned to him. Theoreti- 
cally the foreman may have the next job ready for him, but 
actually he does not in many cases. After the foreman has 
been found, he may or may not be able to tell immediately 
what the man should do next. He may tell him to go to a 
certain place and get a certain piece of material and put it 
on his machine. But the man finds that he needs a drawing, 
and may again have to ask the foreman where to get it. 
After finally securing and studying the drawing with or with- 
out the foreman's help, he finds that he needs certain tools 
not already in his collection, and to secure these again con- 
sumes a great deal of time before he can actually go to work. 
All of this purely preparatory work should be done by some- 
body else than the workman himself, who, while this is being 
done for him, is keeping his machine at work on a job previ- 
ously prepared in the same manner. Form the habit of 
looking upon the machine as the real producer which you 
must keep busy every minute of the day, and the machine 
tender as a producer only while he is engaged in tending his 
machine, and therefore as a non-producer while getting ready 
for a new job, with his machine standing idle waiting for that 
job. Charging the man's time as productive while he is thus 
engaged in preparatory work only, is merely a foolish and 
misleading way of keeping down the ratio of the so-called 
non-productive pay-roll to the productive pay-roll. 

Mr. Lincoln: That is very important it seems to me. 
I am connected with a machinery business, and I had that 
notion of the non-producer drilled into me by the older 
generation, a sort of feeling that every man who was on the 
place, unless he was actually doing something on the product 
itself, was a non-producer, and consequently in the way. I 



i6o TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

want to hear somebody bring out quite clearly just that 
point of the non-producer. 

Mr. Barth: Nearly everywhere I go, the feeling you speak 
of exists. Managers try to gage the efficiency of their 
work by a certain "legitimate" relation between their non- 
productive and productive expenses, but while such a ratio 
means a good deal when the line between the two is well 
defined, it means nothing when you make radical changes in 
the way of handling matters, the way we do. 

In the first place, it is better to use the terms indirect and 
direct expenses, rather than non-productive and productive, 
for all necessary expense is productive in some way, or else it 
would not be incurred at all. You thus class even the most 
efficient manager as a non-producer, while the large salary he 
receives proves that he is the most productive man about the 
establishment. The difference between him and one of your 
so-called producers is merely that his productiveness cannot be 
directly recognized in the various work-orders, while that of 
your producer can. His salary has therefore to reach these in 
an "indirect" way, in the making up of their total cost, while 
the wages of your producer reaches them directly. 

Mr. Lincoln : What do you include as indirect expense? 

Mr. Barth: There is an awful pile of it, I can tell you. 
Indirect expense embraces almost everything except the cost 
of the raw materials and the wages of those who work directly 
upon this. 

Mr. Lincoln: Do you lump your helpers? 

Mr. Barth : In nine cases out of ten it is best to lump them 
and charge them indirectly. 

Mr. Brooks: Referring to the statement that the mental 
attitude has a great deal to do with the expense of the intro- 
duction of Scientific Management, I should like to learn just 
what the mental attitude was among the employees in your 
company when you introduced Scientific Management? 

Mr. Hathaway: Our company was at that time badly 
managed. Our men previous to that time had not been 
treated any better than they are in the average plant, and 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 161 

certainly not so well as in many other plants run under the 
old style of management. There was an attitude of sus- 
picion which resulted in more or less opposition. That 
opposition and suspicion lasted until such time as their 
mental attitude was brought around to the point where they 
could see that through the installation of this type of manage- 
ment, they as well as the management would be benefited. 
In other words, we had to establish a feeling of confidence 
between the workmen and the management before we made 
very rapid progress, but in order to establish that feeling of 
confidence we also had to make some progress. We gained 
their confidence partly through explanations and talks and 
very largely through object-lessons. By object-lessons I 
mean doing such things as made their work easier, such as 
having material brought to them, so they did not have to 
hunt the foreman up when they ran out of a job ; and having 
proper tools brought to them, so a man wasn't compelled to 
work with tools unsuited to the purpose. In many ways we 
made their work easier. It all tended to establish a certain 
amount of confidence in the new scheme, and the further we 
progressed the less opposition we had. 

Mr. Brooks: How many men did you have? 

Mr. Hathaway: About 125, possibly 150 men. 

Mr. Brooks: How long did it take you to win over the 
men to a feeling of confidence in the new system? 

Mr. Hathaway: I think it was the end of the first year 
before the men were working for the thing more than against 
it. Some men saw the advantages more quickly than others. 
Conditions will be found to be different in almost every 
establishment, because in some plants the confidence of the 
workman is already possessed by the management. 

Mr. Brooks: Where there is something like 1,000 men, 
would it take correspondingly longer to win the confidence 
of the men, or would it come quickly? 

Mr. Hathaway: I don't think the number makes much 
difference. Mr. Barth recently had experience with a plant 
employing a thousand. 



162 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Barth: If there is decided trouble it is rarely with 
the individual workmen, but rather with foremen and super- 
intendents, who in having their duties rearranged fear that 
their services are eventually to be done away with, or who 
feel that their authority is being reduced by such rearrange- 
ments. In the twelve years I have been connected with 
this work, I have had only a single scrap with a workman. 
He was a touchy young fellow whom I one day discovered 
turning up to a finish the two ends of a number of small 
axles with an enlarged diameter in the middle, without first 
even roughing off this enlarged middle portion. I suggested 
to him that this procedure was not a very wise one, and that 
he ought to rough the middle portion first, so as to have the 
advantage of the greater stiffness of the rough axle while 
performing this operation. He at once flared up and told 
me that he knew what he was about and did not propose to 
be told by me or anybody else how to do his work. As I 
had spoken only kindly to him, I was so taken back that I 
even forgot to show any resentment, and merely told him that 
he was very unkind in answering me as he did, and that he 
merely succeeded in making an ass of himself, just the same 
as I admitted I had often done myself when a young man, 
and perhaps still did once in a while. This made him cool 
down some, so that he admitted he had been rather hasty; 
but when I told him that if he would take up his work 
again along the lines I had suggested, I would say noth- 
ing to his immediate superiors, he said he preferred to quit 
right then, as he had already made up his mind to quit any- 
way in a few days. I then left him, hunted up his foreman, 
and told the latter the whole story, adding that I wanted 
him to tell the fellow that I was sorry he had behaved so 
badly, and that if he ever wanted to come back and be decent, 
he could have his place back; but also that I would see to 
it that he would not get employment in any of the other 
departments of the factory, for I correctly suspected that 
this was what he had in mind. After lying around for a 
week in an unsuccessful attempt to get into one of the other 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 163 

departments in which a personal friend of his was foreman, 
he went to his original home in a neighboring town and secured 
work, but evidently not to his liking; for about two months 
later he came back and went to work at his old job. 

The difficulty which has appeared lately is not with the 
individual workmen, but with the unions which believe they 
are going to suffer and that the new system will throw half 
of their men out of work. They are afraid that by men 
becoming too efficient the world's work will be done with 
half the number of workmen, and that hence the other half 
will become an enormous array of unemployed. This is 
rather natural, for with our periodical business depressions 
and always some men out of work, it is hard to realize that 
in our industrial age men are never out of work because there 
is not enough of it to go around, but merely because society 
is still so poorly organized as a whole, that we do not go about 
the world's work, which is always on the increase, in a sensi- 
ble way. I believe that increased efficiency all around will 
compel a speedier recognition and solution of some of the 
larger economic questions that confront us. The way we go 
about the matter, we cannot very well have any trouble with 
the men themselves, because over a long period we make no 
changes which effect them in a manner to which they can 
possibly take any exception; but on the other hand we make 
it in many ways easier and pleasanter for them to work in 
the establishment. In this period we also make a number of 
personal friends among them, who get to know us as men in 
whom they can fully confide, and as men who they realize 
are actuated by high motives only, and therefore not likely 
to do anything against their interests. When you take the 
next step, therefore, and require a man to do a certain thing 
in a new way, he will usually take it as a matter of course. 
Thus we had no trouble at the Watertown Arsenal until the 
labor unions got together and protested and played on the 
feelings of the men there, and I do not believe the trouble 
will last long or amount to much. 

Mr. Brooks: How long did it take you to turn over? 



164 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Barth: We worked there for two years before we 
asked any man to do anything in a different way from what 
he had done before. We began with the store-room and the 
tool-room, and analyzed and symbolized the product and the 
machines, and got a planning room in running order. 

You asked about the expenses. At the Watertown Arsenal 
we spent $33,000 in those two years, of which $11,000 were 
chargeable directly to the introduction of the system, and 
$22,000 went into permanent improvements which would 
not have been made if it had not been for the system. 

Mr. Lincoln: How many men did you say? 

Mr. Barth: About 500 men. 

Mr. Brooks: Is that the concern you have just been 
speaking about? 

Mr. Barth: Yes. But there are various ways of going 
about this thing. If you haven't the money to spend, simply 
do a little at the time and pay for it as you go along. But 
if you have the money, and have faith, spend your money as 
an investment and take it back in a term of years. 

Mr. Lincoln: I anticipate this difficulty, which I should 
like to get cleared up. The shop I operate I inherited from 
my grandfather, and a great many traditions have grown up 
in seventy years. We employ in the neighborhood of 300 
men, and I anticipate now that there is going to be more 
or less difficulty in introducing a serious revolution. How 
would you go about that? 

Mr. Barth: What kind of a store-room have you? Can 
any man go there who needs a piece of machine steel, and 
pick it out himself? 

Mr. Lincoln: Oh, no. 

Mr. Barth: If a man cannot do that, then you are already 
pretty well off. 

Mr. Lincoln: No, they have to have a requisition. 

Mr. Barth: That is not so bad, — that is the starting 
point. What about your orders? Do you manufacture a 
standard product for stock, or only as you get orders, or a 
little of each? 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 165 

Mr. Lincoln: A little of each; we make cotton-mill 
machinery, but we have a double problem. We are in Fall 
River and we make looms and power transmission which are 
standard. Then, on the other hand, being in the center of 
the cotton-milling district, we have a large repair depaitment. 

Mr. Barth: That is, a man comes from the cotton-mill 
with a fifty-cent job and expects you to go over to the mill 
and spend $5 worth of time and labor and charge only 
fifty cents for it? 

Mr. Lincoln: There is that double situation there. 

Mr. Barth: I have been through a similar factory, but 
it was worse than yours, because anybody could anywhere 
pick up the material he wanted. It was the worst-run plant 
I have ever seen in my life. The management knew nothing 
about the shop. It was simply a question of operating on a 
sick patient, — either to kill him quickly, or bring him to; 
and I am glad to be able to say that the patient is alive 
today, and when the country's business revives he will soon 
acquire good health. At any rate he is convalescent, but we 
came pretty near killing him. 

Mr. Lincoln: As far as Mr. Kendall's analysis of this 
afternoon goes, my shop would be an unsystematic shop. I 
have had traditions to fight all the time ; we have many old 
employees. One man, for instance, used to come down once 
in a while so as to round out his fifty years, but that is a 
rare exception. However, we have men now who have been 
there twenty and thirty years. I had to fight such men 
pretty hard to get in any sort of change, but it is now a 
systematic shop. 

Mr. Barth: Have you any lists of materials for the 
foundry, or does some fellow keep it in his head? 

Mr. Lincoln: The order begins with the foundry and 
goes to the shop. 

Mr. Barth: Is there any schedule, or is delivery made 
when convenient? 

Mr. Lincoln: The time is marked when the work is to 
be in the shop. 



166 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Barth: You evidently have a pretty good shop com- 
pared with some. A very unsystematic shop is hard to deal 
with. It is easier for us to go to a shop that does things 
some fixed way, no matter how primitive, than where they 
have absolutely no fixed way. One of the greatest difficulties 
of the unsystematized place is that everybody in his own way 
is helping the firm to run the shop. When you suggest 
what they should do, they think you are going to run things 
to the devil. If you have any sort of a channel through 
which your orders pass, you have a good beginning. I don't 
believe your situation is very bad. It needs further develop- 
ment only. When the work comes to the shop, who decides 
what is to be done on each piece, — have you any lists of 
consecutive operations, like turning, milling, etc.? 

Mr. Lincoln: When it gets to the shop it is up to the 
foreman. 

Mr. Barth: Does he have any schedule to work to or 
does he find that John, say, is out of a job, and then go on a 
hunt to find him a new one? 

Mr. Lincoln: There is a list furnished the man at the 
mill by the foreman, — a list of the things expected from the 
foundry. 

Mr. Barth: Has anybody ever looked over the machinery 
to see whether your operations are performed in a reasonable 
time? 

Mr. Lincoln: No; that is just the thing I got out of this 
conference this afternoon. 

Mr. Barth: The proper analysis of the machine equip- 
ment and its respeeding to make full use of modern high-speed 
tools, and finally, the education of the men to appreciate 
their possibilities, is a big job even now, though not so big 
as it was when the high-speed steel first got on the market; 
and I shall tell you of a case in which I showed a first-class 
lathe hand how to run a high-speed tool forty-eight times 
faster than I found him doing, though the shop had had 
high-speed tools for two years previous to my coming there. 
However, I don't believe I shall ever again come across a 
case so glaringly bad as that. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 167 

This man's machine had already been respeeded and "put 
on a slide-rule," though so far we had not gotten around to 
make any use of it, and did not expect to for a considerable 
time to come; and I merely happened, in passing by the 
machine, to notice that the tool was producing only a very 
small chip at a very low speed, and doing it in such a way 
as to indicate that the material was a very soft grade of steel 
only. 

After a little preliminary skirmishing with the operator, I 
produced the slide-rule for his lathe; and, making a con- 
servative guess at the hardness of the material, I set the rule 
for such material, for the diameter of work, and such depth 
of cut as I found the tool was running. The dictates of the 
rule were a spindle speed six times faster than was being used, 
and a feed eight times coarser, making a total of forty-eight 
times the rate of cutting. 

In asserting that this speed and this feed would be all right, 
the operator thought I had gone clean crazy, and when the 
tool under these ran the full length of the cut under a beauti- 
ful blue chip of a kind he had never seen before, and of the 
possibility of which he had never dreamt, he did not know 
what to make of it. However, I soon satisfied him by telling 
him about the discovery and development of the high-speed 
steel, and that the principal reason why I was around there 
was my special knowledge of what could be done with this 
steel. Also, to make him feel perfectly happy about it, we 
at once got after his job and set a task with bonus for it, 
which resulted in his making $1 extra per day for weeks at a 
stretch, and in a reduction of the flat labor cost to the com- 
pany from a $1.50 per piece of his work, to half a dollar. 

Is your line shafting running as it did, say fifteen years 
ago? 

Mr. Lincoln: No, we use high-speed steel. 

Mr. Barth: You seem to be in pretty good shape, in 
spite of your three generations of traditions. 

Mr. Schumaker: May I ask, Mr. Chairman, what the 
plan of procedure would be in such a plant with the traditions 



168 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

of three generations, where anybody could get material — a 
plant without a fence around it? 

Mr. Barth: You must simply tell them to stop it, and 
make them understand if they don't get over it they cannot 
stay with you. We allow old orders to go on in that way, 
but when new orders come in, the new material is put in 
boxes and tagged and there is no excuse. When anything 
comes along tagged, it means the workmen must keep their 
hands off until they receive a definite order to use it. It 
requires a great deal of patience to overcome habit. 

Mr. Schumaker: Mr. Barth, the pith of what I have 
heard seems to be that we start Scientific Management with 
a planning department. I want to know how we arrive at 
the planning department? Where do we begin? 

Mr. Barth: The best way to understand it is to visit one 
of our shops. In the first place we have to get the space, a 
fairly large space, for we frequently have as many men col- 
lected in the planning department as the establishment has 
in the shops. We partition off some corner of the shop for 
the purpose, or else build an annex, and gather into that room 
gradually all the clerical and engineering force necessary for 
the planning, so that in the shop itself we have only those 
employees concerned with the mechanical processes. We 
have also certain foremen who are middlemen between the 
planning department and the men who run the machines. 
The planning work is done as much as possible in the one 
room. Sometimes in a large plant we have to have several 
rooms, but we always refer to the Planning Department even 
if we have it divided and in three or four places. Take, for 
instance, the store-room. The desirable thing is to have the 
stores in one big room. But I know plants in which they 
have several store-rooms, but always with one store-keeper 
in charge of all. 

Mr. Schumaker: How do you arrive at the personnel of 
the planning department? Suppose we want to get Scientific 
Management in our plant and do not want any external 
help. How shall we go about it? 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 169 

Mr. Barth: To do it entirely yourself will be a little 
difficult. My plan would be to utilize your own men and 
not hire outside men. For planning machine-work get your 
best machinists from the shop and put them in the planning 
room. In the last big planning department I built up there 
isn't a single man in it who didn't come out of the shop. 

That has many advantages. The men always look upon 
it as a promotion, and you can avail yourself of the knowl- 
edge they have. You have in them a product which has 
been developed during many years. When you have that 
condition it is very easy to make a planning department. 

Mr. Schumaker: Suppose you have an unsystematized 
shop serving as a maintenance department for an unsys- 
tematized mill. Would you start in the manner which you 
have described, or would you start with a reorganization? 

Mr. Barth: You can attack that problem in two distinct 
ways. If the mill is not systematized you might begin with 
the mill and let the repair-shop go the old way; or you might 
begin with the machine shop and consider the mill as if it were 
a thousand miles away. It doesn't make much difference. 

Mr. Pearson: In a case of that sort, wouldn't you ulti- 
mately arrive at a planning department covering both mill 
and the shop? 

Mr. Barth: Yes, but there is a limit to the size of a 
planning department. When the plant is very large it will 
need a central planning department with sub-planning de- 
partments. Each particular establishment must have its 
own treatment. That is where experience comes in, the 
experience one gets by making failures. There is no such 
thing as a man going into a new plant and organizing it in a 
predetermined way; one cannot look into a situation and see 
so clearly before he starts that he will not make some mistakes. 

Mr. Brooks: What is the advantage in putting in a task 
man? 

Mr. Barth: There is always room for study. Only after 
a thorough study has been made will you come close to the 
proper task. 



170 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Brooks: Could you have in connection with the 
task system a man who hires four or five men under him? 

Mr. Barth: That is one of the things we do not believe 
in — the contract system. We do not believe in any middle- 
man between the management and the workers. He is 
getting something out of the men. We want the men to get it. 

Mr. Brooks: Then you favor only individual piece- 
workers? 

Mr. Barth: The contract system is a weakness of the 
management. A man for doing something unnecessary gets 
a share of the product. 

Mr. Green: When an efficiency engineer comes to the 
plant to work a betterment, what is the ideal relation he 
should bear to the existing organization? 

Mr. Barth: I wish I knew. I think I have an excellent 
relation at the present time in one of the plants I go to. This 
company was able to take one of its own men who had be- 
come thoroughly imbued with their ideas, — he wrote me a 
letter and said he had struggled all his life to get some work 
that he could put his heart into; that now he had found it 
and life was worth living. He is the man whom I instruct; 
I deal rarely with anybody except him. He is the middle- 
man between the concern and me. 

Mr. Lincoln: You are acknowledging the middleman 
now. 

Mr. Barth: As a temporary thing. The systematizer is 
not a part of the organization. He is to be kicked out just 
as soon as you can get along without him. If a systematizer 
is trying to put the plan in by himself, it drops down as soon 
as he leaves, and he has to come back and put it in again. 
But a man on the spot furthers it in his absence. I recom- 
mend to you not to get anybody who undertakes to put a 
system in with his own help, or by himself, but get him simply 
as a man who is to coach one of your own best men. Pick 
out the best man you have — the fellow who wants to do it 
— and have him learn to take the place of the systematizer. 

Mr. Lincoln: I want to ask in connection with the 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 171 

planning department what happens to the old system of 
superintendent and foreman. Do they become members of 
the planning department? 

Mr. Barth: Yes, or become foremen in a new way — 
functional foremen. That merely means that instead of 
having charge of a group of men in all their relations to the 
management, they have each charge of a function in all of 
its relations. So we have several groups of workmen, and 
instead of having a foreman for each, there is one foreman to 
perform a certain function for all of those groups; just as in 
school it is supposed to be of more benefit to have specialized 
teachers, a teacher for this, that or another subject. 

Mr. Brooks: Don't these different foremen have more or 
less friction with one another? 

Mr. Barth: Absolutely none in the long run. The 
change you make is an occasion for temporary friction — 
while the foremen are learning their respective functions — 
but that does not last very long. Whenever there is fric- 
tion we find that it is because some man feels that his dignity 
has been hurt, feels that his authority has been curtailed by 
his being limited to perform one function instead of a lot of 
them. We point out to such a man that his new duties will 
require all the attention of one man. He soon finds he has 
enough to do to perform his own function. There is no real 
ground for friction. 

For instance, in the machine-shop the first functional foreman 
dealing with the men is what we call the gang-boss. He sees 
to it that the men always get the material they are to work on, 
and all the means for doing it — tools, drawings, etc. After 
a workman has been shown how to set the job up on the ma- 
chine, this foreman's duty ends. Then comes the speed-boss, 
who has charge of the work when the machine is actually in 
operation. Next comes the inspector. The only chance for 
friction is when the gang-boss has not fully verified the tools 
and the other boss tells him he has not given the right tools. 
Mr.^ Brooks: Where does the adjustment of the friction 
come in? 



172 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Barth: Through the disciplinarian. In most cases 
the chief gang-boss or shop foreman, who is the superior of all 
these men, will settle the little disputes. When the friction 
is big enough he will take the disputants out and have a 
hearing before the disciplinarian. 

Mr. Lincoln: Will you give us the organization of a 
planning department? Take a plant employing, say, 300 
men, what is the organization of the planning department? 

Mr. Barth: There is no such a thing as a made- to-order 
planning room. So I don't know that I can answer the 
question, but I have one plant in mind. The manager is in 
charge of the whole plant, but he controls it through the 
planning department. The commercial department sends 
the orders. The plant can either ship the goods directly 
from stock or manufacture them. When an order comes, if 
for goods manufactured and in stock, it goes to the super- 
intendent of production. He looks it over and may not be 
sure there is stock enough. In a little corner of the planning 
department are the clerks who have the stock-sheets. The 
production superintendent will send over to find whether we 
have that machine in stock, and if we have it these stock- 
sheet clerks on the strength of the order will issue a requisi- 
tion on the store-room, and the store-room will deliver the 
machine over to the shipping department. The document 
will be sent along with the things. If we don't have the 
machine ordered, and it has to be manufactured, of course 
the drawings will be made first, and everything of that kind. 
But suppose it is a machine we have made before and we have 
the drawings; it is then only a question of manufacturing. 
On the strength of the shipping order is made out a manu- 
facturing order. The manufacturing order is put on record, 
and then the next step is to get all the necessary material, 
send it to the shop, and see that all the necessary operations 
are performed, that the parts are put together and then run 
into the shipping department. 

Each machine to be manufactured has for it what is called 
an assembling chart. This is an analysis which shows every 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 173 

piece — with every operation on it — in the order in which 
it must come through the shop, that it may be assembled in 
the simplest manner. 

Mr. Fry : Isn't all that immensely complicated in a shop 
where there is a foundry, a wood-working department and a 
box shop? 

Mr. Barth: If you have distinct departments like that, 
you have sub-planning departments. The physical condi- 
tion of the shop is frequently such that we cannot make a 
big central planning department; but the main control comes 
from it. The foundry, for instance, would be furnished 
with a list of the pieces wanted; how to get them is decided 
by the foundry itself and its own planning department. 

Mr. Bateman: Has the problem ever been worked out 
with sub-planning departments in the shop? You actually 
have had those conditions? 

Mr. Barth: Yes, the minute the shop gets big you have 
a general planning department and sub-departments in other 
places, but the sub-departments have to work from schedules 
prepared by the main planning department, just the same 
as the planning department must accommodate itself to the 
customer on the outside. 

Mr. Bateman: The central planning department would 
simply send the order to the sub-department? 

Mr. Barth: Yes, for things going out the next day or 
next week. Revise the list every day, week or hour, accord- 
ing to the conditions, and if a repair-job comes in, get busy 
at once. 

Mr. Brooks: Do a great many departments in a busi- 
ness tend to complicate the situation so to make this thing 
impracticable? 

Mr. Barth: I have never seen any such plant, but I 
have reason to believe that the organization of the planning 
department would take longer. 

Mr. Bateman: If you are buying your castings outside 
would you make your purchasing department a sub-planning 
department? 



174 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Barth: That depends; if you buy from a great 
many foundries, and buy out of town, then you must organ- 
ize the purchasing department as you would any other 
department. 

Mr. Schumaker: How much is bonus payment a part of 
Scientific Management? 

Mr. Barth: It does not belong necessarily to it. There 
is not a single detail we practise which is a necessary 
element of Scientific Management. Scientific Management 
means certain principles, and the vehicle of those principles 
can be almost anything. I am constantly modifying the 
details of the system. The trouble with all systems of pay- 
ing a man is, you haven't attempted to get at how long it 
takes to do the job. 

Mr. Schumaker: Do I understand that the payment of 
the bonus is simply to make the path towards Scientific 
Management easier? 

Mr. Barth: No, the payment of a bonus does not come 
till we set the task. After all, what you pay the workman 
is the smallest end in most manufacturing costs. The indi- 
rect expenses are usually so great, — the depreciation on the 
plant, taxes, insurance, president's salary, the commercial 
end, and certain waste — that what the workman gets is the 
small end of the whole cost. 

Mr. Schumaker: Eventually all our activities will be 
under Scientific Management. Then the 20 per cent bonus 
will be received by everybody, and cease to be a bonus. 

Mr. Barth: What will eventually come of that is hard 
to say. 

Mr. Schumaker: I brought up this question because all 
I have heard of Scientific Management has been associated 
with the bonus. 

Mr. Barth: Our method is called scientific because it 
determines exactly — scientifically — the length of time in 
which a man can do a piece of work, and that permits a wage 
proportional to the workman's contribution. I do not care 
so much about the employer — except as an engineer who is 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 175 

doing a nice piece of work for him — as about giving the 
employee more money and making his condition more toler- 
able and himself happier. The most attractive thing is, that 
men dare to be frank instead of hypocrites and liars, and 
acknowledge absolutely what can be done; for in spite of 
the opposition we met with for a while, we have not failed 
to make everybody our friend. 



II. TEXTILE MANUFACTURE 

Leader, EUGENE SZEPESI 
Szepesi &• Farr, Textile Engineers, Boston 

Mr. Szepesi: My duties are simply to lead you in putting 
questions and clearing up matters regarding Scientific Manage- 
ment in the operation of a textile mill. Every mill man 
knows very well, even in cotton or wool or worsted, finishing, 
bleaching or dyeing, that there is a best way to do a thing. 
Mr. Emerson says there is a best way even to boil an egg, 
and that is a fact. As you remember, Mr. Taylor mentioned 
last evening that ordinary shoveling is artistic work, and 
told how he reduced the load from thirty-eight to twenty-one 
pounds and increased the efficiency steadily. He found that 
twenty-one pounds is just the right quantity for a man to 
shovel. 

Now let us see what a man can do, for instance in the 
cotton-mill. Here is one proposition. Recently I developed 
Scientific Management — I give it that name, because I can- 
not find a better one — in a mill. The winding department 
is run with a certain degree of efficiency; the average is 56 
per cent. For the Foster winder, which is well known to us, 
for a certain number — for instance, number 20 2-ply cotton 
— the girl is tending twenty-five spindles. I asked, "Why is 
a girl tending twenty-five spindles on 20 double cotton yarn? " 
The answer was, "Because we cannot split a machine." I 
want to tell you what we have done to find out how many 



176 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

spindles should be tended by a girl on a Foster winder. I 
knew that 20 double cotton yarn is equal to 8,400 yards single 
yarn. I knew by experiment that the variation in length is 
from 3 per cent to 6 per cent. The percentage permitted is 
5 per cent which is equal to 420 yards. The result is that I 
have a yardage of 7,980 yards of cotton on a Foster winder 
which is run at 130 feet per minute. These are the facts. I 
have cotton yarn, I have a machine ; what is the duty of an 
operative in tending the Foster winders? I am simply taking 
the Foster winder as an example, but the same principle applies 
to everything. First of all, she has to beat out the skein. 
Looking at the operation, I found the girl was beating the skein 
without knowing why she was doing the operation. I asked 
various girls the question, "Why do you beat the skein?" 
"Because the foreman told me to," was one reply. Another 
one, "I don't know." So I had to teach the girls why and 
how to beat the skein. That operation is consuming a cer- 
tain time. I established a standard of forty-five hundredths 
of a minute to open the skein, — a cross-wound skein popu- 
larly known as "grand reel" — and lay it flat and find both 
ends. What is the next operation? To put it on the reel. 
Now, we are all individuals and we have some individuality 
about our work. Some girls are using from one-tenth up 
to one minute to put a skein on the reel. So I established a 
standard by which the girl can put the skein on the reel, in 
the same condition as she has obtained it through beating 
without disturbing the ends, in one-quarter of a minute. 

The skeins are wound up and new skeins have to be joined, 
or the skein breaks. There is an average frequency of break- 
ages. I have made time-studies by the thousands to find out 
what is the real average. In every thirty-two minutes, on 
the average, a thread will break; provided the skein is properly 
beaten and the machine up to the highest standard. So that 
is another operation. Dividing the number of yards on the 
machine, which was 7,980, by 130, the number of feet per 
minute at which the winder runs, you get a certain factor by 
which you can determine how many times a girl has to change 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 177 

a reel. In the same way, you determine how many times a 
girl has to beat the skein. 

Another factor which came in was the moisture. I found 
that in the dye-house they extracted the moisture, after dye- 
ing, without a right standard ; the yarn was too dry and broke 
easily. They put in a humidifying system to get back into 
the skeins again the moisture they had extracted unscien- 
tifically; so breaks and time and expense were saved. The 
cross-bands on the reels should be round, without a knot, and 
they should be absolutely clean. By giving attention to these 
factors you can produce a quantity on a Foster winder about 
50 per cent higher than the highest standard ever established 
by Foster or any other machine manufacturer. 

I am giving that as an illustration of what Scientific Manage- 
ment in the cotton industry or in the woolen industry can ac- 
complish. I apply the same thing to a dye-house whether I am 
dyeing by the piece or in the yarn. I can use it for the picker- 
room as well as for the carding-room, for the flyer-room, for the 
spinning-room, for the weaving-shed, for finishing and bleach- 
ing and so on up to the packing — even for the yard-gangs. 

I recently went into a large cotton-mill and had to wait 
for the agent. I was sitting in the office and looking out 
into the yard. A carpenter went to the next building to fix 
a door. A board had been damaged in some way. He first 
went around and made measurements, then he went back to 
the shop to get the board, which proved to be too heavy; 
then he went back again to get help. The whole time re- 
quired to fix that board, if there had been proper planning, 
should have been about ten minutes. That man spent nearly 
an hour and a half. That is again a lack of planning and 
despatching; whether it is a cotton-mill or a restaurant 
or a railroad or a government, the principles of Scientific 
Management can be applied just as well. 

You heard Mr. Taylor and Mr. Gantt and Mr. Emerson 
giving plenty of definitions of Scientific Management, and I 
am just asking you to discuss what can be done with Scien- 
tific Management and proper organization in the cotton-mill. 



178 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

We have here Mr. Patterson, whom I ask to have the 
kindness to start the discussion. 

Mr. Patterson: Mr. Szepesi has been talking about the 
operation of spindles by employees, and I want to call atten- 
tion to a report which has been made to the British Board 
of Trade, a very interesting report and very comprehensive, 
which mentions the number of spindles which are operated 
in various countries. England, I think, has from 3,500 
to 4,000 spindles per person. France jumps to between 
5,000 and 6,000, Germany a little higher still, while Italy 
has about 11,000. The United States comes just above 
England, but has not quite the efficiency that England has. 

Mr. Taylor made a remark about sharing the responsibili- 
ties. That is a thing which is not done now in the textile mills. 
The executive assumes a fractional part only of the responsi- 
bility assumed in other industries. In these you find planning 
departments and other kindred departments laying out all the 
work, and if there are any mistakes it is to the discredit of 
the management. As a rule, you will find in textile mills 
that planning is left largely to the employees. The manage- 
ment tell them that they want so many thousand pieces of cloth 
a week and it is left to the overseer to get it out. He is some- 
times told how many looms he can run; sometimes he is not. 
But the responsibility is not assumed by the management in 
the textile industry to the degree that it should be assumed. 

The first principle of Scientific Management that Mr. 
Taylor mentioned was to gather in the rule-of-thumb in- 
formation. I have been working in textile mills somewhat 
as Mr. Szepesi has all my life, and I find that the information 
which it is necessary to have is not in the offices. As some 
of the speakers have said, you must ask the overseer what 
method is to be followed. This is one of the things which I 
am trying to do now, to gather the information into the 
office so that the mills can be run completely from the office. 
It is a large undertaking. I have not set a rate of any sort 
and I have been at it for over two years. 

One of the ways in which I am gathering this information 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 179 

is by establishing standards through all our plants for stand- 
ardizing purposes, also for cost purposes. It is said that the 
costs are incidental : they are to a certain extent, but they are 
a very large incident. The prices in textile mills are all 
made before the goods are sold and they are all based upon 
estimates. There are few costs used in the textile industry. 
The costs that they now have are made up semiannually or 
annually and are based upon estimates which are made at 
the time the cloths are first introduced, multiplied by the 
yards made, perhaps, and then an adjustment made to equal 
the actual expenditures. You will find that method in use 
in most of the textile mills. 

People ask, ''What good are costs if they are not got 
accurately? The goods are not sold accordingly to those 
costs." That is very true, but there is a deficiency in the 
textile industry which is a very marked one. We are much 
behind the steel and shoe industries. We are now where 
they began. We are not getting our operation statistics 
accurately: we are only getting our balance sheets semi- 
annually or annually. They can be obtained monthly and 
are being obtained monthly in two textile mills that I know 
of, but I know of only two in this country. We have to have, 
with those, running inventories. Beyond the current costs 
and the running expenses, the textile mills today have most 
of the information that is essential, but those two are the 
stumbling blocks. You have to standardize methods to be 
up-to-date, and, after obtaining those two, start your scientific 
methods. But I feel that you have to know what you are 
doing and have been doing before you can take intelligently 
those steps, excepting in isolated cases. 

It has been stated that the management is the hardest to 
handle. That is pretty true; I think that is one of the 
greatest obstacles to be encountered by any one installing 
new methods. That point was made by both Mr. Taylor 
and Mr. Emerson. The textile industry is considered one 
of the most conservative, and I know it takes a great deal of 
tact sometimes to avoid trouble. 



^o TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

It was stated that in some industries there is one man in 
three employed on the side of the management. If you would 
talk of any such proportion as that at the outset with the 
textile manager, he would not give you a hearing. The cost 
of installation is probably the first thing the textile man 
inquires about when investigating any system; and it is a 
very difficult problem for a manufacturer to approach, be- 
cause there are no set standards of procedure. An engineer 
will frequently be asked, "What can you do for me?" He 
does not know; he has never seen the manufacturer's plant, 
perhaps; he cannot give an idea what the cost would be; 
he wants to go in and try. Then the next step is usually to 
set a limit upon what the first outlay will be. After that he 
probably makes a diagnosis of the manufacturer's require- 
ments. Following that, usually the cost estimate is made, so 
much a month for so many men, the items not stated but the 
gross sum stated; then the manufacturer wants to know 
whether it is all worth while. That is a thing which he will 
have to judge for himself. He can tell only whether it is 
desirable for him to have modern methods and, if he has 
them, whether he will use them, and whether he has men 
who are able to digest them and apply them successfully to 
his business. 

Mr. Emerson said that in the machine-shops he found a 
machine running at an efficiency of one and a half per 
cent. The arguments which the master mechanic put up to 
him are typical of what he will get in the textile industry. 
Do you appreciate the conditions in this industry? Every- 
body thinks that the need of his particular industry is different 
from that of any other, and that his problems will have to 
be met separately. As a rule, the problems in the majority 
of these various kinds of business are all the same, 
though called by different names, — talked about in different 
languages. The solutions are largely the same. 

I have been working now for the past two years with the 
Pacific Mills, and the greater part of my efforts recently 
has been devoted to preparing for a new, large print-works, 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 181 

in order that that may be started correctly. The method of 
procedure has been first to arrange for the collection of all 
expense, and before that I had to arrange for an analysis of 
every job in the plant; in all the organization in fact — 
cotton-mills, worsted-mills and print-works. Those items of 
the analysis have been all grouped under departments which 
have been numbered — worsted department, cotton depart- 
ment, and print-works — and then each room given a num- 
ber under that. There are seven numbers, identical in each 
room in the organization; these are for overseers, clerical, 
cleaning, trucking, oiling and general supplies, with another 
for labor which is not absorbed in any other occupation. A 
man can go from one room to another; simply ask the 
man's room number, because the job numbers are the same 
wherever he goes; he can go from the cotton-mills to the print- 
works or the worsted-mills, it makes no difference. If he is 
a master mechanic's employee, there are six other numbers, 
one each for labor, material, repairs and maintenance of 
buildings, machinery, furniture and fixtures. Then there 
are a few numbers assigned for jobs which are peculiar to a 
department, which are expenses, and still a few others which 
are productive labor. That book comprises all the jobs in 
the organization. You would think it would be an immense 
undertaking to analyze those. Well, when you think that it 
is all done by the machine which tabulates the United States 
census, it is not so large an undertaking. It gives us an 
opportunity to close our costs when jobs are finished, and to 
keep things cleaned up. 

The entire purpose of those costs is that key to the situa- 
tion, the balance sheet, and that we are arranging to get 
monthly. 

Mr. Szepesi: Mr. Patterson made the remark that the 
introduction of Scientific Management is a very expensive 
matter, that you never can tell how long it will take, that you 
simply go into expenditure and you never know where it is 
going to end. We generally use a diagram to explain to our 
clients how much money they will actually spend on an 



l82 



TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



improvement in accordance with Scientific Management. 
Suppose we go into a plant and we are asked to reduce the 
cost to a certain level. If we make investigations and come 
to the conclusion that it is possible to make such a reduction, 
we are able to figure out how much it will actually cost. The 
net cost of introducing Scientific Management is not great; 
it is actually just borrowing money on the security of future 
increased returns. And that cost does not usually require 
cash payment for the entire cost of development in advance; 
before the installation is completed there comes a critical 
period when its cost is met by the saving actually effected. 
Then follows a period when the savings are increasingly 
greater than the original cost and the difference is credited 
to the cash outlay at the beginning. 



Suppose in a plant the present cost of manufacture is 150 per unit, 
and it is estimated that a reduction to 1 1 5 per unit is possible when the 
conditions are standardized through Scientific Management. 

Standardizing conditions means additional expense which must be 
advanced. This increases the unit cost to say 160 at the beginning, 
but it grows less and less as the development work proceeds. At 
about, say the sixth month of work, the savings equal the develop- 
ment expenditure, and the unit cost — the development cost included — 
is exactly what it was at the beginning. From then on, the savings 
being increasingly greater than the development cost, the unit cost 
declines until, say by the end of the year, development cost ceases and 
the unit cost reaches the estimated 115 units. 




y* m r 



'/'<"- 



The line ab = the unit cost before development. The line cd = the 
gradually decreasing unit cost (development cost included) during 
development. The line de = the unit cost after development is com- 
pleted. The distance ac = the increase cost at the beginning of 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 183 

development. The distance df = the saving in unit cost at the time 
development is completed. The total cost of development (savings 
deducted) is area w, which has been advanced and must be replaced. 
The area y (x = w) = net savings of the year. 

The real value of development can be seen in the second year. The 
development burden has ceased. The advantage, therefore, of the 
standardized over the unstandardized plant = z. 

It should be observed that "unit cost" through any period cannot 
be represented by a straight line, because it varies with the constant 
variation of manufacturing factors, material cost, labor cost, etc. 

Mr. Morrill: When a man says he finds the efficiency 
of a mill 56 per cent, am I to infer that the average worker 
in that mill performs only 56 per cent of what the average 
of all the workers could do, if they were properly instructed? 

Mr. Szepesi: No, it means that the management is not 
performing its duties. 

Mr. Morrill: Take the whole plant; not the worker 
alone, but the worker and management together. 

Mr. Szepesi: The worker is never more efficient than the 
management. If the management is — not unscientific, but 
what I call unsystematized — the worker is very inefficient. 
It is not his fault at all. If I say that the plant is 56 
per cent efficient, it means that the combination of wastes 
caused by labor, by disorganization, by material wastes, by 
unscientific buying, by unscientific selling, all combined to- 
gether, produce that result. There is a certain plant that 
I have in my mind, a cotton-manufacturing plant using 
old machinery. They have old-style spinning-frames; their 
mules are almost anno 1800. Their looms have been running 
thirty-two years. You can imagine how efficient this plant 
is. That plant is actually running at, we figured, something 
like 42 per cent efficiency. We received a request to 
introduce Scientific Management and we refused it. You 
cannot take a man who is suffering from tuberculosis in the 
worst stage and put in a new lung, but when he is at the first 
stage of tuberculosis you can save him. All that manu- 
facturer can do is to throw out his old machinery and start 
anew to bring up his efficiency. It is the waste of manage- 



184 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

ment, not of the worker, which has brought him down to 
this low figure. They are working with machines which are 
absolutely not much better than scrap-iron. My experience 
is that the working man is anxious to make money. In intro- 
ducing Scientific Management, you will improve the efficiency 
of the workmen a small per cent, bring it up to between 75 
per cent and 85 per cent, but the greatest gain is in prevent- 
ing leakages. For instance, I have found that in a certain 
mill many weavers were missing from the looms without rea- 
son, and I traced it back to the filling room. In the filling 
room this concern employed two good-looking girls, and every 
weaver, when he found himself a little bit lonely — I cannot 
express his feelings — went down to the filling room with 
a certain excuse. I transferred those two girls to another 
department and put in two older women. The efficiency of 
the weaving room went up 5 per cent. So the object is not 
to drive the worker but to prevent waste of time. 

Take a certain plant running 100 looms; Jones is the 
foreman, a mighty good fellow, and he is just waiting till 
the loom breaks down; when the loom breaks down he 
repairs it. I had a mill where 37 per cent of the looms 
were idle because of repairs. Our policy is not to repair; 
it is to prevent. We do not let a loom or a spinning- 
frame reach a condition where it needs extreme repair; I 
do not wait until a picker-stick or any other part breaks; 
I change it; and by examination generally I can, and you can, 
and any one else in the business can tell in five minutes 
whether the loom is in condition or not. 

As a rule, I give instructions that at every dinner-hour the 
section-hand is to go over the looms and, if there is a little 
repair necessary, it is to be done right away. So I prevent 
breakage, and bring up efficiency. The Northrop loom is 
very efficient, but still there are cases where the Northrop 
loom does not come up to more than 75 per cent of what it 
should do. It is not because the Northrop loom is not 
efficient; it is because the management is not efficient and 
does not consider that looms need a certain attention and a 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 185 

little planning. Prevent breakages, prevent stoppages, pre- 
vent wastes, and you can see how you have reduced the cost 
of a certain article. 

There is no part of the textile industry where you cannot 
reduce the cost. I have a strong example from the South. 
There is a certain cotton-mill in the South which I have 
visited, — it had a new building, new machinery, everything 
modern and sanitary. They are making cotton sheetings 
which cost them to manufacture twenty-five cents per pound, 
and they are getting twenty-four cents for them. So they 
came to us; they sent samples, descriptions, the pay-rolls in 
every department, and I could not find out why they manufac- 
tured for twenty-five cents per unit and sold for twenty-four 
cents until I made a close investigation of their yarn. The 
reason why they could not make money was, that they could 
not account for 10,000 pounds of cotton in one month. They 
did not know what had happened to it. They put it into the 
manufactured article, but they called the yarn No. 20 when 
it was No. 16. Here was the trouble, and with such a leak- 
age no manager, scientific or otherwise, is able to decrease 
the cost of manufacture. So that is again a case illustrating 
why some cotton-mills make money and why some cotton- 
mills cannot make money. 

Testing, for instance, is an important factor, and testing 
today, in America especially, is very primitive. We do not 
test our material. A man who is buying yarn just looks at 
it. Also, there is no scientific test of speed. An overseer 
says, "I guess I will run 120 picks a minute." Why is he 
running at 120 picks per minute? He has no other reason 
than that he learned it that way. I came into a mill where 
they ran ninety-five picks a minute, and I gradually speeded 
up to as much as 126, and the thing that made it possible 
was that I was getting less breakages in the harness than 
they had been getting. So in textile mills you can determine 
the actual factors just as well as in any other industry. There 
is no reason why every textile man should not experiment 
on a certain scale for himself, look into things carefully and 



186 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

establish standards. He should not permit a thing to be 
done a certain way just because it is customary to do it 
that way. 

I am going to give you a striking example. In Germany, 
for some 250 years, at a certain garrison, a sentinel had 
been sent out every night about five miles away to watch 
something; he did not know what. A new general with a 
curiosity like that of Scientific Management was stationed 
at this post and, seeing the sentinel going by every day, 
inquired why he was sent out. Nobody could tell him. The 
general was a little inquisitive and, on investigation, found 
that 250 years ago there had been a magazine for military 
supplies on the spot in question. That magazine had been 
blown up 150 years before, but they had continued to send 
the sentinel there because they had done so before. 

In industry it is the same thing. My father was a mechanic ; 
he was a watchmaker and my brother is a watchmaker. My 
brother learned the trade from my father. A certain boring 
instrument my brother used at the same speed that my father 
did, until I found out that he could increase his speed, be- 
cause the instrument had been improved. He learned it the 
old way; he did not have the inclination to look for any 
possible improvement. So because a certain loom or a certain 
spinning-frame or combing-machine is run in a certain way, is 
no excuse for failing to try to bring it up to a better standard. 

In the textile industry, I think I am justified in saying, we 
cannot expect any improvement that will greatly reduce the 
cost of manufacture through machinery. Carding is a very 
primitive proposition, we all admit. Mule-spinning is a prim- 
itive proposition. Who has something better? I do not 
think I shall live long enough to find something better. 
Here is the Jacquard machine, more than 100 years old, 
and it has not been improved in the last 100 years. 
So we have to accept the present condition, assuming that 
the machinery may improve only to a certain extent, a few 
per cent. We have to look, therefore, for other improvement. 
What we are doing is to compare minutely the present indus- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 187 

trial conditions with what they would be under Scientific 
Management. We are all open for improvement, and we 
should all do our very best to understand what Scientific 
Management is. It is not a slave-driving system, and it will 
never be. The laborer is paid what he is worth, and every 
one of us is willing to give the laborer the share to which 
he is entitled. 

As to wages, that question came up last week with a manu- 
facturer. He wanted an explanation as to what a bonus is. 
You hear so much about the bonus; what is a bonus and 
what is a laborer entitled to? I have no use for a man who 
under Scientific Management cannot reach the point of 66 
per cent efficiency. That man should look for another occu- 
pation; he is not fitted for what he is doing. But that 
means: if it is found, after experiment and endeavor to teach 
him one step at a time, that he cannot get up to that efficiency, 
he is to look for another vocation. Suppose I take ten differ- 
ent weights, and take an ordinary worker to move them out; 
how will he do it? He finds it is easiest to carry the lightest 
one, and then the next one, and so on until he is able to carry 
the hardest one. That is the way we teach a man. The 
boy going to school and learning algebra does not begin at 
quadratic equations. Reaching college he does not start at 
calculus; he has to start with the elementary principles. 

Suppose I am a manufacturer and employ a weaver; the 
first thing he does is to change his shuttles. It is an easy 
task. He may not be able to take care of the warps, take 
care of the beams, take care of the machine, but he is able to 
take care of the shuttles. Next he may learn to take care of 
the reed, and he gradually will become an efficient weaver. 
So he attacks first of all the easiest unit of the task on which 
he is employing his skill, and then the next easiest, and so on. 

Now to induce this man to learn most efficiently one 
step after another, and to give him his share of the results 
of increased efficiency, the bonus system of payment is used. 
It automatically makes his wage greater as his efficiency 
increases 



i88 



TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 




Let e = the unit effort to reach efficiency from the lowest, say 50%, 
to 60% efficiency; and let the effort be twice as large to reach from 
60% to 70% efficiency, i.e., let the effort required to reach 

from 50% to 60% = e 

from 60% to 70% = 2e 

from 70% to 80% = se 

from 80% to 90% = 6e 

from 90% to 100% = i2e 

therefore the individual has used up efforts at the different stages of 
individual efficiency, as follows, — 

at 60% e 

at 70% e + 2e 

at 80% e + 2e + $e 

at 90% e + 2e + $e + 6e 

at 100% e + 2e + 2>e + 6e + ne 

effort efficiency 



Now 



result reward 



therefore 



if effort = e, Reward v — e 

if effort = 2e, Reward v 1 = e + 2e 

if effort = 36, Reward v 2 = e + 2e + $e 

if effort = 6e, Reward v 3 = e + 2e + 36 + 6e 

if effort = i2e, Reward v 4 = e + 2e + $e + 6e + \2e 

= V" 



but 



+ 1 

+ 2 



v 

»2 - V 6 2 +3 2 

T7 1 



»8 - V12 
V24" 



»4 



units 



2 + 5 2 

If bonus for 100% efficiency is 20%, thus the bonus paid at the 
different stages of efficiency will have the following index numbers, — 

50% o. 80% 6.7 



60% 
7o% 



1. 

3-6 



90% 
100% 



12.6 
24-3 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 189 

and the bonus paid will be — with some slight corrections, — 

Efficiency 60% Bonus 0.8% 

Efficiency 70% Bonus 2.4% 

Efficiency 80% Bonus 5.5% 

Efficiency 90% Bonus 11.0% 

Efficiency 100% Bonus 20.0% 

So that is the way the laborer is paid, the physician is 
paid, and everybody in the world. If his efficiency is going 
up, no matter how much he is paid, he is worth the money 
paid to him. If he is 100 per cent efficient, he is going to 
get a 20 per cent bonus. We have two forces; one is the 
task, the other is his actual ability in the task he is perform- 
ing. So the wages of a worker can be established and not 
guessed at, — "I guess he ought to make $8.00 a week" or "I 
guess he ought to get 5 cents per unit." What the worker 
is entitled to must be established : then you cannot do him 
an injustice. So the question of wages and bonus is one which 
is the hardest to attack. It should be done very carefully, 
because cutting a wage or a rate is disastrous. 

Mr. Davis : In the case which you spoke of a while ago — 
the good-looking girls — where you made a change of em- 
ployees from one room to another, would it not have been 
better for the discipline of the room to have made it a point 
of discipline instead of making a change? It seems to me 
that in that case it would have been better for the overseer 
to have enforced the rules. 

Mr. Szepesi: The policy is to prevent. We are only 
human, and Scientific Management is something which takes 
a great deal of philosophy and tact and diplomacy to handle. 
So I cannot say that a man must not go to the room when he 
has to go. But if I change the situation he will not go any 
more than he actually has to. So prevention is one policy 
of every industrial engineer. It is the policy of today. We 
try to prevent tuberculosis, we try to prevent every disease, 
we try to prevent industrial depression, not merely to cure 
it — that was the old system. We have something better — 
to prevent 



190 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Cardullo: Do you attempt to fix a task in the 
weaving industry by settling the number of picks and the 
percentage of time looms are to be stopped, and so on, and 
then ask the men to make that test and give them a bonus 
if they get over that? 

Mr. Szepesi : Yes, something of that kind after careful study. 

Mr. Cardullo: Well, how do you do that; do you have 
some system of piece-work? 

Mr. Szepesi: The piece-rate is nothing less than the 
market value of an average good workingman based on the 
conditions and the proper day's work. I give him a certain 
piece-rate which I want to keep and give him encourage- 
ment to do his very best — not drive him, but have him do 
his very best — and I could not give him more than actual 
money. They don't care for nice words, and I don't blame 
them. They have burned their fingers many times. A 
piece-rate and bonus — a real piece-rate honestly given to 
them, and the management doing its best to promote effi- 
ciency — is insuring the workman to earn that money; and 
they are going to earn it, but there has to be established a 
certain rate. Today it is established by cost and certain 
market conditions without knowing what the proper day's 
task is. That can be determined only by time-studies. 

Mr. Cardullo: You establish the day's task by time- 
studies before you fix the piece-rate? 

Mr. Szepesi: Absolutely; that is the only way to do it. 

Mr. Lincoln: How far has Scientific Management, to 
your knowledge, been introduced in the textile industries? 

Mr. Szepesi: I am sorry to say in not more than 1.5 per 
cent of the whole industry. It is about that. Several mills 
are taking it up now, but it requires considerable time to 
develop it. 

Mr. Lincoln : Have you actually introduced the bonus? 

Mr. Szepesi: It has been introduced in several cotton- 
mills and woolen-mills. 

Mr. Lincoln: Just how do you apply it to spinning, for 
instance? 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 19 1 

Mr. Szepesi: That is a very interesting question. I went 
into a cotton-mill to see girls attending spinning-frames. I 
made time-studies and I found that a girl seventeen years 
old was the most efficient in the whole room. And so I put 
her aside. I did not want her as a standard, because she 
was too efficient. I had a variation from fifty-seven spindles, 
attended by a girl, upwards, and I gave a bonus according 
to the number of spindles a girl can attend. Some girls are 
clever and some girls are not. 

Mr. Lincoln: Yes; but what is your basis? 

Mr. Szepesi: My basis is time-studies, just as well as 
for looms or for anything else, to determine how many spindles 
a girl can run on an average. 

Mr. Lincoln: I understand it varies with your frames and 
with the age of the machinery? 

Mr. Patterson: And the quality of the stock? 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes, but that is all averaged. I determine 
the unit cost just the same for a loom which I use for a fancy 
fabric as for a loom used for the ordinary printing sheet. 
For every one I have a different rate, for different stock and 
different numbers of yarn. 

Mr. Lincoln: You have some standard with which you 
begin, don't you? 

Mr. Szepesi: No, I have to find out the standard. We 
all have standards in general, but when we start to standard- 
ize specific conditions we do not consider previous standards; 
we consider only how much a girl should earn under the 
conditions. Maybe my unit will be smaller or will be larger. 
I have had cases where they established a certain rate, and I 
had to reduce it to 50 per cent. When the girls were 85 per 
cent efficient they made as much as 30 per cent bonus with 
the reduced unit rate. So time-studies and investigations 
must establish the rate — the right rate — only the operative 
must earn as much as she did before, and certainly should 
earn more, because you want her cooperation. 

Mr. Lincoln: I should say that spinning would be a very 
difficult thing to standardize. 



192 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Szepesi: Spinning, I admit, is a very difficult propo- 
sition, but the rules of Scientific Management can be applied to 
cotton spinning just as well as they can be applied to handling 
pig iron. The difference is in degree. It is a difficult propo- 
sition, but it can be overcome by time-studies and by estab- 
lishing rates and by making experiments as to what is the 
best condition for spinning a yarn. 

Mr. Morrill: How do you increase their efficiency — 
by giving them more spindles to run? 

Mr Szepesi: Sometimes. Sometimes I reduce the spindles 
to be run. I have known cases where they gave the opera- 
tive too many spindles to run, and therefore she could not 
attend them. As I illustrated for the winding department, 
the spindlage for a spinner should be established just as well, — 
how many operations she has to perform per unit of spindle, 
and how much time she has per unit of spindle, and the differ- 
ence between the two is going to give the result just the same 
as any other mathematical equation. One girl may be extraor- 
dinarily fitted for that work. I have seen girls who are born 
spinners, some women again who are absolutely unfitted. 

Mr. Morrill: If you take anything off them, you have 
to take the whole side? 

Mr. Szepesi: You may probably take the whole side, but 
you may arrange the spindles differently. You may improve 
the efficiency of a spinning-room by improving the light, by 
improving the ventilation, by giving the girl ten minutes 
rest every day in the forenoon and in the afternoon. All 
these things will improve her efficiency. There are many 
factors which you have to analyze very carefully in order not 
to come to a conclusion which may prove a failure for the 
mill and cause labor troubles. The standard that would be 
just and right should in every case be sought for. In many 
cases, we reduce spindlage. 

Mr. Corcoran: It just occurred to me that the efficiency 
of a cotton-mill, of course, could not be increased very many 
per cent by any superhuman methods or means of man. 
Now, on the other hand, in introducing Scientific Manage- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 193 

ment there is necessarily brought in a new expense, the 
planning department with all its detailed studies and figuring. 
Mustn't you show a saving for the mill right there? Isn't 
that the stumbling block that keeps it out of a good many 
textile mills? 

Mr. Szepesi: No. The planning department is the brains 
of the mill. I cannot think with my hands, I only feel with 
my hands. If you go into a cotton-mill and without any 
planning department you want to observe facts, whether a 
certain stock is running or not, you have to feel it. The 
planning department — the brain — on the other hand 
actually gives you information as to what the stock is and 
enables you to make a saving. 

Mr. Corcoran: I might put it this way, that a blind 
woman might make a waste basket, — 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes. 

Mr. Corcoran: And if you gave her eyes she could not 
make a waste basket much faster, — 

Mr. Szepesi: No, but you can prevent the delays. For 
instance ; in a cotton-mill, say the picker-room or the scutcher 
is out of condition ; you have, probably, an ordinary man with 
limited intelligence, to weigh every bundle or every roll that 
is coming down from the scutcher. If the stock is not proper 
or the machine is not delivering the right production, the 
difference cannot be seen at once. If you have a planning 
room, you know that a certain stock, a certain unit, has to 
go through. Next you find in the planning room that the 
production is not what it should have been, — there is some- 
thing wrong. Many thousands of dollars worth of cotton 
could be saved by discovering the trouble in time to pre- 
vent the cotton going through to the spinning-room, by reme- 
dying the difficulty at the very beginning. So the planning 
department is the brain, the nerve system of a mill. 

I have seen a certain textile mill where they had a planning 
department, — a full plan was drawn of the whole mill, and 
a point was designated for every loom, for every spinning- 
frame; and for every frame they worked, the kind of goods 



I 9 4 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

they were running and the date when the goods must go 
through. It is not money thrown away; it is simply estab- 
lishing a system by which you know things and do not guess. 
You have a brain for the organization, not merely a tool. 
Suppose you want to find a certain piece of goods which is 
somewhere in the dye-house. John is going there, maybe he 
is around and maybe he is not; and he may be able to find it. 
But in the planning room, you know that this particular lot 
will be in the bleachery tomorrow. 

Mr. Corcoran: I have had a little experience in scien- 
tifically managed concerns, and we have found that, whereas 
under the old system a point might be stretched to favor a 
certain customer, yet under Scientific Management all cus- 
tomers, as I understand it, are universally kept at bay until 
the goods come through of their own accord. Do you think 
that is Scientific Management? 

Mr. Szepesi: No. You may buy a gold brick of the real 
stuff or you may buy a piece of brass, just shining. So it is 
up to the particular concern to determine whether it has real 
Scientific Management or not. One cannot prevent people 
selling gold bricks. We don't sell them, in fact, we don't 
promise gold bricks. But I read last week that Scientific 
Management is taught in twenty lessons at $2 a lesson. 
So it is a question of the reputation of the man to whom 
you apply. You may go to a fake to introduce his so-called 
Scientific Management. 

Mr. Corcoran: I might ask that other question of mine 
again, and that is this: I think you will have to show to 
textile men that the cost of maintaining a planning depart- 
ment will not be larger than the saving they can possibly 
make over the present slipshod methods. 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes, you have to show every manufacturer. 
It must be proved that things are actually worth what they 
cost. I have shown you by a diagram how the expense is 
repaid to you by the improvements. In the beginning, you 
have to advance a certain amount for the future account 
while the plans are developing. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 195 

Mr. Russell: When you establish a piece-rate, that is 
the flat rate for every man in the spinning-room, or the card- 
room, is it? 

Mr. Szepesi: They are all on the same rate; every one has 
the same chance to make money, but it differs. Mr. Taylor 
has a certain method of determining rates; Mr. Gantt has 
a certain method, and so has Mr. Emerson. But there is no 
difference in the principle; they are only different forms of 
execution of the bonus system. But every one is getting the 
same rate. For instance, I may have foreign help at $6 
a week. If she is primitive help and cannot understand 
English, the best way is to make things as simple as 
possible. I had a funny experience with foreign help. I 
introduced the bonus system and gave the help a table show- 
ing how much bonus they would get for certain efficiency — 
if you make ten yards, if you make eleven yards, if you make 
twelve yards, and so on. Before I came into the plant they 
paid for the edges. Now it was a fancy worsted fabric, and 
the workmen themselves had to twist on the edges, because 
they had long warps and the edges went from little spools, 
so it was customary to pay them for the edges. Every pay- 
day, every two weeks, the average workman was receiving 
22 cents extra for the edges. After the first pay-day under 
the bonus system, a Pole was making something like $3.50 
bonus because he had over 66 per cent of efficiency, but 
I didn't pay him for the edges. He almost killed me. He 
wanted his edges, no matter how much bonus he made. 
So I prefer, with help not speaking English, not to give an 
elaborate plan, not to tell them what I am doing. I tell 
him, "If you make so much, you earn $11.22; if you make 
so much, you earn $14.75." Give it to them in this primi- 
tive form, and for his primitive mind it is satisfactory. 
Foreign help is likely to have imaginary grievances. 

Mr. Caswell: Have you found it to be an advantage 
to tell the foreign help what you are doing, explain to 
them? 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes, I must gain their confidence. 



196 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Caswell: How can you explain these complicated 
bonus tasks and rates to them? 

Mr. Szepesi: It is all up to the workman. First, if I have 
an Englishman, I say, "John, I will explain to you what I 
want." But — 

Mr. Caswell: Non-English-speaking people — 

Mr. Szepesi: We have 85 per cent foreign help, some 
Greeks and some Poles. I simply say nothing. When the 
pay-day comes, he sees his pay envelope and finds he is earn- 
ing more money; and then he gradually is broken in. I write 
down things in English and have them rewritten in Polish. 
For instance, instructions for the weaver: "Don't do that," 
"Do that," giving little sentences in popular language telling 
him what he should do, what he should not do, and how much 
he is going to earn. Gradually you gain the confidence of 
those simple-minded fellows, and they comprehend what 
you tell them. I know them very well; I was brought up 
in the old country and I have traveled a great deal in Europe, 
all through the Slavic countries, so I am familiar with their 
state of mind. They all have imaginary grievances, and it 
is my conclusion that 75 per cent of the strikes in America 
among the foreign help could be avoided by considering 
them just as they are, as primitive human beings. This 
is a simple psychological fact; we have to handle human 
beings as human and handle them in their own way, in their 
own language. So I do not anticipate difficulties, provided 
the man is careful who handles that very delicate task of a 
bonus, which is like a bunch of wasps, — you have to be very 
careful, to be somewhat of a diplomat, to handle it. 

Mr. Caswell: Have you found it any advantage to inform 
these non-English-speaking operatives each day what they 
have earned the day before? Or do they have to wait until 
pay-day? 

Mr. Szepesi: That all depends. For instance, I never 
advise to start with the whole room. I may pick out one or 
two intelligent foreign men who speak English and let them 
receive the training in the improved methods. Then very 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 197 

soon they are talking about and telling everybody that they 
are making more money, — that is the way I introduce it to 
the room. When the others see they are making more money, 
they are anxious to get it — sometimes, sometimes not. 
Sometimes they refuse even to work under it; they don't want 
it because they don't understand it; so diplomacy is absolutely 
essential for introducing Scientific Management. You can- 
not lay down a universal law or a rule by which you can 
handle every one. In every mill you have different conditions 
and you have to adapt your system to the conditions. The 
bonus should be established only after long time-study, 
because it should never be changed. 

Mr. Caswell: Do you advocate the use of a daily record, 
a time-card showing the amount of work that each operative 
has done? 

Mr. Szepesi: Both are used, and I advocate both accord- 
ing to the conditions. I have mills where it is necessary, but 
in many mills it is impossible to get the data. If I have a 
warp which runs off in two weeks, I cannot tell each man what 
he is making. 

Mr. Caswell: You can by the use of a pick-counter, 
can't you? 

Mr. Szepesi: I have had some experience with pick- 
counters, and I find that in some mills they are very valuable, 
but in some mills you cannot use them, and I do not know 
whether, on the whole, there is a practical value in them. 
It depends on actual conditions, just as I may have a plan- 
ning system developed in a certain way, which all depends 
on the help. I know two mills employing the same help; 
one is very efficient and the other is not. They are of the 
same nationality. The difference is that in one they don't 
know how to handle the help. They try all kinds of im- 
proved machinery, but it does not improve matters. I think 
at the beginning it is advisable to inform the help whether 
they are improving or not. Then if you see a relapse in a 
workingman's production, you can improve it right away. 

Mr. Caswell: I have not heard anything said about 



198 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

whether the pay of the foreman of the room depended at all 
on what his room produces. 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes, he is getting a bonus just as well, but 
not for production only. 

Mr. Caswell: For quality? 

Mr. Szepesi : The foreman is getting a bonus for produc- 
tion and quality, and it is just. Everybody, I think, even the 
manager, should get a bonus for the improvement of the plant. 
He is entitled to it just as well as the lowest helper. It is 
nothing but an ideal cooperative system. 

Mr. Broughton: In weave-rooms do you pay particular 
attention to the speed of looms? 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes. 

Mr. Broughton: How do you go about that? Do you 
take daily readings or twice a day? 

Mr. Szepesi: Now if you speed up a loom it is a question 
how you run it — whether you run it by belt or by direct 
electric motors. I find that the variation in the electric 
motors is very great. For instance, if a loom is speeded up 
to 104, it is run between 104 and 105, and in belting you 
may have slipping. If you improve the belting conditions, 
you have absolutely uniform speed of the loom within 
certain limits. 

Mr. Broughton: What would you allow if a room were 
running 103 picks — 2 picks? 

Mr. Szepesi: I would not allow them 2 picks, that is too 
much. That is more than 1 per cent, it should not be more 
than 1 per cent. Besides, you have to consider that in a 
fabric those picks generally equalize; it is shot through, and 
is shot in, and is under a certain stress. When you go through 
the bleaching and dyeing and finishing processes in the cot- 
ton fabric, you cannot recognize your original fabric, so that 
one pick makes no difference for an ordinary cotton fabric if 
I am weaving a high-grade fabric. 

Mr. Broughton: Wouldn't you be governed in that by 
the number of picks you are putting in? 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes, when I am picking. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 199 

Mr. Broughton: How much the looms fall off? 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes. That is the best test of the variation, 
and to overcome it a differential take-up is advisable. If you 
have proper belt conditions and proper motor conditions, 
the loom in good order and the take-up gear in good order — 
sometimes they slip if you don't take proper care — then the 
differential take-up system insures almost uniform operation. 
You have to consider, for instance in a big corporation, that 
one pick per inch amounts to something in a year; one pick 
per inch is a bonus. 

Mr. Broughton: How do you get the average, say in the 
weave-room? 

Mr. Szepesi: I pick the weavers out. 

Mr. Broughton: How do you know she is a good weaver? 
Do you take time-studies? 

Mr. Szepesi: I take time-studies. First of all I see how 
much money she is making, then — 

Mr. Broughton: You have no standard to start with? 

Mr. Szepesi: No, I am blind when I start and I gradually 
open my eyes. When I start, I pick out men, — first of all 
a man who is fairly intelligent in appearance, clean, and with 
good habits. If he is an Englishman or speaks English, I 
explain to him what I am doing. I explain to this man what 
the stop-watch is, and gradually I gain his confidence so that 
I can make time-studies, and I am able to establish standards. 
The first time-study of a man is absolutely useless, — I have 
been a weaver myself, and when the boss came around I was 
getting busy; I tried to do things very fast. The second, 
third, fourth, and fifth will probably enable you to establish 
an average. 

Mr. Lightbody: I am glad to hear you are a weaver. I 
want to ask you one question. You select for your first 
weaver a good, smart, intelligent weaver to get your first 
standard? 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes. 

Mr. Lightbody: Now, do you take the poorest weaver? 
There are poor weavers you know; there are weavers who will 



200 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

do only one-half as much as others on the same work. What 
do you do with them? You take the high one and the low 
one and then average them? 

Mr. Szepesi: I don't average them. I find out why that 
poor weaver is not coming up to the desirable efficiency? In 
many cases, I have found it is up to the manager. So I 
don't average; I just determine and take, — just as Mr. 
Taylor said, a good dray horse for hauling coal — a good 
weaver. If I have foreign help, I take an average man from 
Europe who never was a weaver before, but learned his trade 
here. I cannot take a man who comes over from England, 
whose father was a weaver, as a standard for a Polish weaver 
who learned the business here. So I take a man who emi- 
grated from Europe and learned his trade here, and is sober 
and industrious and willing to learn. That is the ideal man 
for a time-study; not the very good man but the average man 
you have in your mill. It is also advisable for corporations 
to do a little work in getting information as to the general 
habits of the help — to determine average living conditions 
and deficiencies. That is an index number. If I know that 
index number, I can tell what will be your efficiency. It is 
up to the help. Then you can take an average from the 
average man you have in your mill, after many time-studies. 
A good weaver is a man who is not all the time busy, who is 
not always standing at his loom and watching. A man who 
is happy and whistling around the loom is an ideal man. 

Mr. Russell: How much time would you spend with the 
man who is a poor weaver, to instruct him? How far would 
you go in that respect? 

Mr. Szepesi: It all depends on how many applications I 
have had. If I am in a town where I can get plenty of help, 
I am not going to bother too much with the inefficient man. 

Mr. Lightbody: What do you do with him, if you can't 
bring him up? 

Mr. Szepesi: If he is not fit for that particular business, 
I cannot bring him up to standard, — there are failures among 
physicians and lawyers and ministers and weavers and 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 201 

mechanics; you find in every business, men who have missed 
their vocation. If a weaver comes up to the standard of 
66 per cent it is worth while to keep him, because it is a hard 
thing to let an old hand go, and I don't believe in it; but if 
he is below, and I cannot bring him up, I must place him in 
another department. Possibly he is a good finisher; I should 
try him there ; or perhaps he would be a valuable man in the 
carding department; try him. I am sure that in a big 
corporation you will find a place for every man. 

Mr. Broughton: Don't they object to being transferred 
from one department to another, if they select weaving as 
their particular job? 

Mr. Szepesi: No. 

Mr. Broughton: Can you put them in the card-room and 
will they stay? 

Mr. Szepesi: That is again a question. If they will not 
stay there, it is beyond my power to help them; you 
cannot afford to have a man who is not doing justice to 
your capital. 

Question: How much time do you spend on a weaver? 

Mr. Szepesi: It depends on what you weave. If you 
weave a high-grade worsted, I am willing to spend four months 
with a man. 

Question: Supposing you are weaving cheap print-cloth? 

Mr. Szepesi: One week, if you see a man is absolutely 
unfit for a certain work as a weaver; within a week you may 
see indications of his ability or his willingness. You can 
determine in one week whether he is fit for weaving a cheap 
print-cloth or a plain merino fabric. 

Question: I have had some experience myself in weaving, 
and I had one young man, a Pole, working for me, who could 
not earn his salt for about three months, but he turned out 
to be about one of the best weavers I have today. 

Mr. Szepesi: Well, that is an extraordinary case. 

Question: Under your one- week method you would lose 
that man. 

Mr. Szepesi: No, I would place that man in another 



202 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

department if possible. I mean by one week, if the man is 
unable to show any hope for improvement, — don't misunder- 
stand me; if I see that the man is improving a little bit I 
would give him every chance. For instance, we all differ, 
and perhaps he cannot grasp a certain idea right away. It 
took me years to learn to drive a nail, until by accident I 
found I was hitting it just the right way; but I improved all 
the time. If he shows any signs of improvement, he will 
probably be a good weaver, but if he shows absolutely 
no improvement, no willingness within a week, then he is 
something which you cannot afford in that department. 

Mr. Wobbecke: How do you figure a man's standard 
when he works only about half a week, whether he is 60 
per cent or 70 per cent or 50 per cent efficient? Suppose 
it is between seasons and you are not busy? 

Mr. Szepesi: When he is doing a day's work and is 100 
per cent efficient that day, he is put down as 100 per 
cent efficient. I do not figure weeks; I figure efficiency 
per hour. 

Mr. Wobbecke: You figure according to the number of 
hours he works? 

Mr. Szepesi: The number of hours he works. Any other 
way would be an injustice; for instance, to a man who is a 
very good worker and who is sick a day; he is entitled to his 
average efficiency per hour. 

Mr. Wobbecke: Don't you find, as you are going around 
and making investigations at different factories and discover- 
ing these instances of great inefficiency, that the managers 
are apt to disbelieve you and not have anything to do with 
it? 

Mr. Szepesi: I don't sell efficiency; I am a professional 
man. 

Mr. Wobbecke: I know, but aren't you called out to 
make inspections? 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes, if they call me in. I don't sell it. 

Mr. Wobbecke: In case you try to inform managers that 
there is something wrong in their factory, I suppose they are 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 203 

likely to say that they have been in business all their lives, 
and they have an idea they know all about it. 

Mr. Szepesi: Yes, many people do that. I had a case 
where a cotton manufacturer read my articles and he wrote 
me a letter asking me to see him. He was an elderly man, 
and sizing me up, he said, "How old are you, sonny?" I 
said, " I am thirty-one." " Well," he said, " I am seventy-five 
years old and you mean to tell me how to run my business?" 
But still we prove that one cannot know everything, and there 
is no superintendent who can do development; he has no 
time. There is no manager, no foreman, who can do it; they 
have no time to do it; they cannot neglect their work. Scien- 
tific Management must be introduced without disturbing 
the mill. Suppose you ask the superintendent to make 
time-studies and development; he would neglect his most 
important duty, which is to get the production. 

Mr. Wobbecke: Take the finishing room; how do you 
calculate a man's efficiency there where his work is dependent 
on the work of another department? Take a man running 
the nap-shears? 

Mr. Szepesi: That is a good question: I am glad you 
brought it up. I can make great improvements in the 
finishing department probably without disturbing the con- 
ditions, but I start at the foundation. I start at the picker, 
or even at the storage room, and then go up gradually from 
room to room in the order of the processes. I cannot introduce 
standards of operation and standard wages in any department 
unless all the departments leading up to it are on a certain 
efficiency basis. Every department is dependent upon other 
departments — those through which the material must pass 
before reaching it — and if its standards are established upon 
the basis of conditions in those other departments which are 
afterwards changed, the standards become useless and have 
to be discarded. You start at the beginning, at the storage 
room; that is the place to start; then go up gradually. You 
cannot start in the finishing room unless you have improved 
all the departments before the finishing room. 



204 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



III. SHOE MANUFACTURE 

Leader, CHARLES H. JONES 
President, The Commonwealth Shoe and Leather Co., Boston 

Mr. Jones: Gentlemen; we certainly should be very 
much pleased that our trade has turned out such an inter- 
ested delegation. It is rather surprising, in view of the fact 
that, as I believe, Scientific Management has made no 
very great progress in the shoe business. So far as I know, 
the only concern which has adopted Scientific Management in 
a large way, and has made distinct progress in consequence 
of it, is the W. H. McElwain Co. We see representatives here 
of that company, and many other prominent manufacturers, 
and we hope to hear from you all; if not with experiences, 
at least with inquiry, because from the efforts made by the 
McElwain company and the very surprising and gratifying 
results which they have accomplished, it does seem that 
Scientific Management is especially applicable in the man- 
ufacture of shoes. I should be glad if any representative of 
the McElwain company will give us his views or experiences 
at the beginning of our meeting. 

Mr. Prescott: As a representative of the McElwain 
company, I feel embarrassed that Mr. Jones has called upon 
me so early in this meeting, and to have him state that we are 
the only shoe factory that has done anything in Scientific 
Management. I feel rather that the entire shoe business had 
adopted a good many of the principles, even before Scientific 
Management was known as such. The putting of the goods 
through in regular schedule time, the idea of a uniform pro- 
duction, and many of those points, I think the shoe business 
had been, of necessity possibly, driven to adopt. One of 
the speakers today quoted from Adam Smith's writings of 
a century ago, that the best economic conditions obtain 
when goods are distributed on the smallest margin of profit. 
I think he would be very much gratified at the present 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 205 

conditions in the shoe-manufacturing business. I think they 
affect the manufacture, the jobber and the retailer right 
through. The consumer today gets his shoes with as little 
margin as in any industry that I know of. 

Now, with regard to Scientific Management, I believe 
that we have hardly more than scraped the surface. I 
must say that we have been tremendously interested in Mr. 
Taylor and his many writings ever since this first came before 
the public as generally as it has. The fact that business is 
a science, from the start to the finish, is a thing which as a 
company we have had instilled into us ever since the forma- 
tion of the company by Mr. W. H. McElwain. We have 
realized the fact that each move should be studied, straight 
from the person who is at the head of the business to the 
fireman on the engine. We have planning departments 
throughout the entire organization, beginning with the sales 
of the goods and following through the manufacturing divi- 
sion, with the floor work made uniform throughout. It is 
attempted to plan every move in advance. In our labor 
department we attempt plans which will work out for the 
uniform earnings of the men, that they may have constant 
work, and therefore earn maximum wages. We are very 
positive that we must conduct the business in such a 
manner that we may have conditions among our help 
entirely satisfactory to them, that we may have a uniform 
production and make a uniform amount of work for each 
man, so that he may get out the maximum amount of work 
and thereby gain maximum earnings. 

I do not know what more I can add. I was not intending 
to talk today, particularly on the McElwain company. I 
want to talk more upon the generalities of Scientific Manage- 
ment. I think we must all expect that the next few years 
will see great advances in the scientific management of all 
business. The conditions are such that a business to be 
conducted on a profitable basis must be done in the most 
efficient way. That comes only by a careful, complete 
planning, at the very outset of the work. 



206 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Jones: If there are any of the gentlemen present 
who would like to ask Mr. Prescott questions in relation to the 
business, probably he would be glad to answer. For myself, 
I should like to inquire if it has been your experience that 
under Scientific Management it means an exceedingly large 
output, at a reasonable or low price per unit, and if your 
help are generally satisfied. Do you have any trouble in 
that direction? 

Mr. Prescott: They appear to be pretty well satisfied. 
We have had no trouble. 

Mr. Luitwieler: I should like to ask Mr. Prescott, — 
I understand practically all of your people are on piece-work? 

Mr. Prescott : A very large part of them. 

Mr. Luitwieler: Typewriters, errand boys, and so on? 

Mr. Prescott: You are going a little to extremes, al- 
though there is a rather interesting thing in connection with 
the errand boys, which I might tell you about. We had a 
great deal of trouble getting efficiency, — quick service among 
our errand boys. We studied out a plan whereby that work 
was measured, and a proper unit adopted for the various 
classes of work; for instance, answering a call on the same 
floor as the office. We divided it up so that a boy got a cer- 
tain allowance for covering that distance. Our plan was that 
we paid the boys an amount a week, and over a certain amount 
they received a bonus. We further conceived the scheme 
of dividing the department up into two teams, so that the 
boys competed, and the result has been that we think we 
have the maximum amount out of all our errand boys. At 
the end of the week, the number of merits of each team are 
posted. The merits are in small units and run somewhere 
in the 30,000, but it is seldom that one of the teams is more 
than 1,000 ahead. One week it will be one team, and the 
next week the other. They are boys of the age of young men 
in college. The spirit of competition is very strong in them; 
consequently, it has worked out in a very interesting way. 

I think that is a little outside of the line of Scientific 
Management, but I thought you might be interested in it. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 207 

Mr. Donovan: I noticed Mr. Prescott was listening quite 
attentively to the speaker when he was talking about the 
store and storeroom. We should like to hear from him on 
that point, if he is willing. 

Mr. Prescott: The plan of a central supply station in 
the factory we find a very simple matter. Instead of having 
the supplies distributed in the various rooms in the factory, 
we have adopted a central station for them, and all findings 
and similar articles of the shoe are received in that central 
supply station. As to the amount kept, if the stock falls 
below a certain amount, more is ordered. Requisitions are 
sent to the central storeroom by each department once each 
day and filled. Of course, that keeps the factory itself entirely 
clear of any superfluous merchandise. The man in charge of 
the stores is responsible for the quantities ordered, and if any 
stock is obtained, he is responsible for getting rid of it quickly. 
It has been a very efficient manner of eHminating waste in that 
department. 

Mr. Jones: It has been a source of great satisfaction to 
me to see meeting with us today Mr. Tobin, the representative 
of organized labor in the shoe district around Brockton and 
that section. Whatever desires we may have in regard to 
the improvement of service and efficiency will, of course, be 
largely affected by the attitude of our employees. I have 
listened with a good deal of satisfaction to all the speakers, 
and without exception, every one of them has pointed out 
that the welfare of the employee is the first consideration of 
Scientific Management. I am curious to know if that senti- 
ment is accepted; if the laboring men themselves and their 
representatives feel that Scientific Management is really 
being introduced with full consideration for their rights; and 
if Mr. Tobin will speak to us along that line, we shall all be 
glad. 

Mr. Tobin: Mr. Chairman, this is the first time in my 
short life that I have had the privilege of being at college. 
I came today to learn something. This Scientific Manage- 
ment that we are discussing today is, in my opinion, not as 



2o8 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

new as many people suppose it is. It is quite ancient in 
the shoe business; that is, as far as the shoe business may 
be considered an ancient business or a modern business. I 
am speaking now of the factory system, distinct and separate 
from the old-fashioned small shop. 

The factory system in its early inception developed the 
piece-work system, and growing out of that piece-work system 
came the scientific method of producing shoes in the swiftest 
possible manner. I go back myself to the early eighties, 
when I was working in a shoe factory trimming edges and 
heels, and in my work, which did not require more than two 
or three minutes on a pair of shoes, I timed every movement, 
every operation, with a view singly of eliminating motion 
and getting out the work in the shortest possible time. I 
received from my work good compensation for the time being, 
but it resulted finally in the lessening of the sum per pair, 
per dozen, per hundred, that I received for my work. I can 
see in this present-day Scientific Management possibilities 
that are great, from the standpoint of economy in production. 
I am not quite clear yet that this system is going to work 
for the benefit of the race. I am inclined rather to the opinion 
that the policy of getting more pay for less work for all the 
people would be better in the long run than the attempt to 
get more work for less wages for fewer people. That is the 
fundamental problem which I see in this so-called Scientific 
Management. It always has an eye single to the proposition 
of greater efficiency, and Mr. Prescott clearly brought that 
out in the competition between two groups of boys doing 
messenger service. Now, to my mind as a humanitarian, 
that is, to put it very mildly, a vicious system. I do not 
know how it was conceived. I know how unreliable boys 
are in doing errands. I have had inconvenience more times 
than once in that, but I think that this is carried to an enor- 
mous extreme. Efficient service could be rendered, and 
could be secured from boys without going to that extreme. 

I believe that the whole theory of Scientific Management 
can be worked out in other industries as well as it has been 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 209 

worked out in the shoe trade, and in the shoe trade we have 
not heard much of it. In fact, we believe that in the modern 
shoe factory today the management is very, very scientific. 
No other kind of management could hope to succeed in the 
shoe business. I believe that the best future of the shoe 
business will be promoted, — the best interests of the whole 
craft, both from the manufacturing end and from the worker's 
end, will be served — by devising a plan of economical pro- 
duction. Economical management will give to the worker 
the volume of work, as against the lack of volume that halt- 
ing, hesitating, haphazard management, which is pursued of 
necessity by the small manufacturer, gives. That reflects 
upon the workmen, and the difficulties which we in our union 
have are largely with the small manufacturer. We manage 
to settle all our disputes with the large manufacturers with 
more or less good feeling and satisfaction on both sides, but 
with the small manufacturer who has to run his plant at a 
disadvantage as against his larger competitor, we must suffer 
the inroads which he attempts to make upon our earnings 
and upon our conditions of labor. It is the only way that he 
can offset the disadvantage under which he labors with his 
more successful competitor of larger means. It has been my 
experience, covering quite a number of years, that the small 
concern gives us the most trouble. It is a source of very great 
satisfaction to me to know that in the centers, the factories 
paying the highest rate of wages, in which the earnings of 
the operatives per man are good, are among the most suc- 
cessful; and there is a reason for that; that psychology which 
Mr. Kendall mentioned this afternoon is the one which I 
believe is responsible. Those men who receive the best wages 
and the steadiest employment are the ones who are giving 
back the best service in return. They are not always grate- 
ful for their employment under good conditions, but as a 
rule the workmen appreciate good treatment and the oppor- 
tunity to earn good wages. In so far as Scientific Management 
can be made to make conditions favorable to the workman, 
by eliminating unnecessary delay in furnishing the materials, 



210 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

in assembling the materials to his hands, and by making it 
possible for him to get out the work without running around 
the factory seeking some part of the shoe which he is working 
upon as a means of getting out his day's work, it is a distinct 
gain to the workman. 

Now, in Scientific Management that can be eliminated, 
and the best results secured in that way. But avoid anything 
in the direction of the premium system, anything in the direc- 
tion of saying to a man, "If you do so many pairs a day, we 
will give you $3, and if you do twice as many, we will give 
you $4.50." That will never work successfully for any con- 
siderable time, and that is one of the difficulties that I see in 
Scientific Management. The real scientific manager will not, 
in my opinion, practise that; but he will have many imi- 
tators who will seek to apply that method and call it Scientific 
Management. That is where the danger is going to crop out. 
I am not interested at all, and would not be interested as a 
workman, to get $3 a day for doing 100 pairs of shoes, and 
$4.50 for doing 200 pairs of shoes. Some of the advocates 
of Scientific Management say that if you do 200 pairs, 
the employer gives a percentage of the saving as a bonus to 
the workman, but the manufacturer takes the larger percent- 
age of that gain. Now, that is wrong, because, everything 
else being equal, the first 100 pairs are done under Scientific 
Management, that is, under conditions most favorable to 
getting out 100 pairs of shoes. Then, in my cupidity, in my 
desire for gain, I try to do 200 pairs. I do 200, and I get 
$1.50 for doing the second 100 pairs and $3.00 for doing the 
first 100. That is a system which will not in the long run 
survive, because eventually men will organize to protect 
themselves against it. 

Do not make the mistake of supposing that because you 
establish a system today, you are able to say that your help 
are satisfied. You never can tell, as an employer; you do 
not know the state of mind of your workmen. I have found 
many manufacturers who have undertaken to tell me that 
they know how their workmen feel. The up-to-date manu- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 21 1 

facturer will tell me that he does not know how they feel. 
That is one thing that they hide from him; dissatisfaction 
will break out some day, and that business which has profited 
by a system which degrades the workman will find itself in 
serious difficulty. I base that prediction upon my knowledge 
of human nature. The psychology of the working-man must 
be taken into account, and it does not require an educated 
man to understand it, either. A very ordinary, and a very 
ignorant man, but having all the proclivities of the human 
kind, will look for, and will find, a remedy, and will suffer in 
the finding of that remedy. That is the natural outcome. 

I hear lots of talk in the direction of promoting harmony 
and good-will between the employer and workman and of 
figuring out and reasoning out a rational and reasonable way 
to get a fair return for a fair day's pay. I am against any- 
thing that gives a good day's pay for an abnormal day's 
work. It takes it out of the human frame. Many of these 
standardized plants are standardized and run today at the 
expense of the men who are in the business. They are killing 
themselves with system, and they will eventually kill the 
business with system. It is not, to my mind, reasonable to 
expect that a very large force of men can be speeded up to 
the last notch of their energy and continue efficient for 
any considerable length of time. Of course, it may be said 
that those who become inefficient and are worn out can be 
cast aside. That may be the materialistic view, but that will 
not last, because, in the end, you must conserve the human 
race. You must conserve the human race in order to have a 
market for your products, and all the Scientific Management 
in the world that leaves out of consideration the ability to con- 
sume and the wherewithal to consume, is bound to be faulty. 

Now, I said in the beginning that I came here to learn, and 
not to teach, and what I have said now is just with reference 
to this Scientific Management, into which I have not gone 
very deeply. There are some good ideas in connection with 
it; some excellent ideas. One point made by Mr. Kendall 
this afternoon, to my mind, is worth a visit here, if nothing 



212 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

else: the selection of the right kind of steel, to make the 
right kind of a razor. There is a peculiarity which is true in 
the shoe business. The selection of the right kind of leather, 
and the right make, to make the kind of shoe you want, is 
real scientific management. 

Mr. Prescott: I want to say one thing that I think I 
ought in justice to say, with regard to this plan about the 
office boys. The competition scheme started from the boys 
themselves, as a request from them that they might be al- 
lowed to do it. I think I should be inclined to agree with 
Mr. Tobin that the scheme might be pernicious under some 
circumstances. In starting a thing of that kind, we make 
allowance for certain conditions, or rather, study the con- 
ditions. We might adopt in one place what might not go in 
another. 

Mr. Jones: I was very much interested in what Mr. 
Tobin said about the condition in the early eighties, when 
men were paid by the piece. New machines were being 
constantly introduced. Men were put on by the piece, and 
when they attained a certain proficiency, and earned certain 
wages, the price was reduced so they had to hustle to earn 
what they could have earned originally at the original price. 
I feel that that was one of the most serious mistakes the shoe 
manufacturers ever made. They did not at that time con- 
sider the rights of labor sufficiently. There is no question 
at all but that the laborer has a right to share in the improve- 
ments brought about by every change of machinery, or any- 
thing else in which he is a participant. I believe that is true. 
I will say for myself that I was one of the offenders. I was 
in the field at that time. I had the privilege of putting in 
machinery in our own factory to take the place of hand labor. 
We did not know what the right prices were. We did not 
know what Scientific Management was, and time-study, and 
all these things. We put them in and let the men make their 
own speed. When they earned a great deal more than their 
fellows, we docked them so they could earn about the same 
as their fellows. That is not Scientific Management; it is 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 213 

exactly the opposite. None of the engineers who advocate 
Scientific Management would for a moment tolerate that 
proposition today. 

Just one other point. You spoke of anything that could 
facilitate the work coming to a man, so that he might do a 
full day's work. That you approve. That is Scientific 
Management. I remember an experience when we first used 
lasting machines. They had been in use in other sections a 
long while before they were used in South Abington. We 
finally introduced them, and a piece-price was made. The 
men didn't earn very large wages, and didn't do a great many 
boots. We made calf boots in those days. I timed one or 
two of them to see why. I found they could last a case 
easily in twenty-two or twenty-three minutes, but they 
wouldn't do over ten or twelve cases in a day of ten hours. 
I tried to find out why, and I finally ascertained that the 
things Mr. Tobin describes here constantly happened. A 
man would get a case to last, supposed to contain twelve 
pairs. There would be one "left" gone. He would have to 
hunt the factory over to find it. There would be inner soles 
omitted, or something wrong about work somebody else had 
done that put him back. Perhaps he couldn't get the uppers 
to fit the last he had. There wasn't a plan; the planning 
department was wholly absent. So finally I took it upon 
myself to agree with those men that if they would do all the 
goods they could, I would see that they had stock enough 
brought to them to keep them busy. That is to say, the 
lasts were sorted, brought to them and put at their bench, 
and they did the work. That made a most satisfactory 
result. They did a great deal more work. 

Now, right there, comes another point of Scientific Manage- 
ment. I was entitled to pay for the time of the man who 
looked up those things for them. That man's time was very 
much less valuable than that of the operatives. These men 
were skilled operatives, and a man at fifteen cents an hour 
could easily do what they were taking their time, worth twenty 
cents or thirty cents an hour, to do. Consequently, we 



214 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

agreed on a certain basis, and for years that basis was the 
rule in our factory. That is, we agreed to find the work and 
deliver it to the man; then he did it at a price which proved 
advantageous to him, and also economical to us. Now that, 
I believe, was honestly Scientific Management. 

You spoke of another thing, that the man doing ioo pairs 
a day, who was speeded up by the bonus system to do 200 
pairs, was entitled to double pay; that is, he should not do it 
for $4.50, when he got $3.00 for 100 pairs. Now, your state- 
ment would be exactly true, if the management didn't assist 
him in getting that result. I assume he could not do that; he 
could not get double the production unless the management 
contributed something that helped him. They do contribute 
something; that is, they facilitate his work in some way; do 
a part of the work that he did; arrange his machine in a 
different way, and see that the racks are brought to him. 

Mr. Tobin: The facilities for doing the first 100 pairs 
were the same as for the second 100 pairs. 

Mr. Jones: If they were, you are right in your claim that 
the man should have double pay; but I understand Scientific 
Management means this: that the man cannot double his 
production unless the management does contribute to his 
success, and if they do contribute, and he acknowledge that 
they contribute, then it is only right that a new adjustment 
of the reward should be made. But I am not going to discuss 
that. 

We are fortunate in having with us an engineer who knows 
something about Scientific Management, and if Mr. Tobin 
did not hear Mr. Taylor last night, perhaps Mr. Godfrey will 
tell us something about it. 

Mr. Godfrey: I hesitated when asked to come in here to- 
day, because I have been working on Scientific Management 
only fourteen months. Therefore, I am just beginning, but 
I have had the very great opportunity of working under Mr. 
Taylor's direction. Some of the things questioned I can ex- 
plain, and one is the question of the changed conditions. 
There is a tremendous difference between the conditions sur- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 215 

rounding the production of the original 100 pairs of Mr. Tobin, 
and the conditions made possible for the workman today. Let 
us see what some of those things are. In the first place, under 
the old conditions they were all the time hunting for tools and 
waiting for materials. Today there are always men coming 
up to deliver every single thing required at the workman's 
machine. After the operation is complete, the move-man 
takes the finished work and delivers it to the next machine 
or wherever it is going. There are inspections between each 
machine, to make absolutely certain that every part is de- 
livered to the machine and that it is properly taken from 
that machine to the next. And you must remember in this 
connection that you must pay the salaries of the move-men 
and inspectors, doing work which the workman used to do. 

Now, the question of preparation. For every operation 
that goes on, there is preparation made. The clearest pos- 
sible instructions are sent to the workman in the way of 
instruction cards, tool lists and drawings. Every single task 
explained as we explain it is a definite lesson to the workman. 
The tools given him are not only the right tools, but the 
best possible tools for the present state of the art. If there is 
a block wanted, the workman does not hunt up a carpenter to 
have a block made. The right block is provided as specified 
in advance by an expert. Then, when all preparation has 
been definitely made, the speed-boss or machine instructor 
comes to help the man in his work. The speed-boss, by the 
way, is the man who determines the speed, feed and condi- 
tion of the machine, not the speed of the man, and who assists 
and instructs the workman. He does not speed him up as is 
falsely stated time and again. 

Now, what it amounts to is this: Scientific Management is 
the only type of management of which I know, which delib- 
erately takes up not only investigation, but the other side of 
the problem, education. It is a wonderful thing to see the 
planning room cooperating every single hour with the work- 
man outside, showing him how best to do the work, and 
encouraging him to do it in the best way. 



2l6 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Take another example. In scientifically managed shops 
there are times when some class or type of machines will be 
busy, and another class or type will be idle. There are times 
when the second group will be busy, and the first idle. Every 
man in a scientifically managed shop has his capacity. He is 
not only instructed how to run his regular machine, but he is 
given an opportunity to enlarge his machine knowledge, thus 
increasing his range of productivity by systematic instruction 
with an instructor right on the spot. The instructor teaches 
him first how to operate machine No. i, we may say; then a 
different machine representing a second group; then he is 
trained on a third type and a fourth ; and the workman is paid 
more as his capacity increases. That is, he is constantly edu- 
cated to run a greater number of types of machines with his pay 
increasing as his education advances. Is not this progressive 
education as far as possible from making automatons of 
men? We have a planning board and chart by which we can 
check any given job in ten minutes, and switch the work from 
one set of machines onto another set of machines. And we 
know, moreover, which men can do the work on any given 
machine. Every man is constantly being trained for some- 
thing better under Scientific Management. He has a possi- 
bility before him, which has never existed before, as far as I 
know, in any other system of education; because, from the 
apprentice boy who comes in at ten cents an hour, up to the 
president, every man is being trained, and always knows that 
the opportunity is open for advancement. 

Now, to come back to the question between the manage- 
ment and the man. If the conditions were the same on the 
ioo pairs and the 200 pairs, it would be absolutely unfair. 
But you have made all this preparation; you have to 
have tools and your tool-room; your foreman; your in- 
spectors and your speed-boss, all of whom are instructors 
who are telling men how best to do their work. The pay 
of all these men has to come in on the operation; the move- 
man's pay has to be included ; the route-clerk, who told how 
the work should go from one machine to the other in the 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 217 

correct sequence of operations, has to come in. There is one 
man on the planning side to three or five on the working side. 
These men are producers as much as the men actually at the 
machine. Why? Because they are making it possible to 
produce by taking away delays from the operative; enabling 
him to do his best possible work. How does it come? It 
comes because Scientific Management is simply seeking for 
the best possible way of doing any given piece of work. I 
sometimes call it the doctrine of research. That does not 
mean anything very big. Primeval man was making a re- 
search when he hunted for roots that were edible as against 
those that were not. We are taking the very best means 
that modern science affords; all the work that has been 
done up to the present time in chemistry, biology, physics; 
in all the great branches of human knowledge; and we are 
trying to apply it to the betterment of industrial processes, 
and that means the upkeep or conservation of the man, as 
much as it means the upkeep or conservation of the machine. 

Mr. Tobin spoke about harmony. If a workman does not 
succeed, we consider that it is up to us to show him how to suc- 
ceed. Instead of blaming him, we try first to see what is 
the matter with the management. If a workman can't do 
the work in one job, find another job for him, put him at that, 
and educate him there. If a man has a job which needs 
strength in his hands, and he has not that, Scientific Manage- 
ment does not say, "Throw him out." It says, "Find the 
job he can do with the hands which he has"; that is, fit the 
man to the work. To get the maximum production, high 
wages, and a low labor cost, there is one road. We are 
working all the time to find what is the scientific law 
under which a man should work. It is the substitution of 
exact knowledge for guesswork, combined with a complete 
change of mental attitude on the part of both employer and 
employee. 

Mr. Tobin : I subscribe to every one of your propositions, 
but the difficulty is that there are not enough engineers to 
go around, and there will be imitators. 



218 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Godfrey: Of course there will be imitators; but yet, 
you wouldn't stop chemistry, which has given us so much, 
or medicine, which has given us so much, because there might 
be few doctors or chemists qualified to do the work. 

Mr. Tobin: Is this a piece-work system? 

Mr. Godfrey: Ours is a task bonus system. The task 
is wholly different from the straight piece-work system. The 
task is determined by scientific experiment. It is only 
determined when everything has been done to make it 
possible for the workman to do the task. 

Mr. Tobin: Has the workman any part in fixing that 
task? If I explain my reason for asking the question, perhaps 
you will understand me. I go upon the theory that it takes 
two sides to make a bargain, and if the workman's task is 
fixed without his consent, it may be fixed by a man of your 
stamp, or it may be fixed by a scalawag. 

Mr. Godfrey: There you have a difficulty, but I would 
not set any task if I could not bring the data and convince 
any man. 

Mr. Tobin: I am satisfied of that, but other men might 
undertake it. 

Mr. Godfrey: The answer is that it is not Scientific Man- 
agement. 

Mr. Tobin: That is what I am afraid of. 

Mr. Godfrey: I know it, but I say again that neither 
medical science, biological science, Scientific Management or 
any other science should be opposed in any way because unfit 
men may pursue that science. If you will pardon an illustra- 
tion, take the automobile. That is a very dangerous machine 
in the hands of an unfit man. But the community guards 
itself from the unfit men. The joy rider moreover is likely 
to be killed by his own car. Scientific Management would be 
extremely likely to prove a boomerang in the hands of a man 
who tried to use it wrongly. 

Mr. Slayton: Mr. Tobin, I believe you are trying the 
task bonus system in the Douglas factory, are you not, in 
the cutting room? 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 219 

Mr. Tobin: No, $3 a day for hand cutting, and $3.50 for 
machine cutting. 

Mr. Slayton: How about the bonus? 

Mr. Tobin: There is no bonus that we know anything 
about. The point system was abolished two years and a 
half ago. 

Mr. Slayton: They did try the point system? 

Mr. Tobin: Yes. 

Mr. Godfrey: But did they know what the task was? 
Had they done this work first? 

Mr. Tobin: Yes. They had a certain number of points 
for each pattern. If the pattern was complicated, they got 
more points. It was a piece-work system. 

Mr. Donovan: I should like to ask one question; that is, 
how are we going to decide what is a proper day's work; 
whether it is that which is set before starting in upon Scientific 
Management or after? Where do you start in, and where 
do you find the proper amount to give a man for nine hours 
work, or eight hours? 

Mr. Godfrey: No task is set until the "move" is abso- 
lutely fixed ; until everything is taken away from the machine 
and everything is brought up to it. That is, the management 
takes the responsibility of doing all the work it can before 
it sets a task for the workman. 

Mr. Donovan: What is the proper day's pay for a man? 
That is what I want to start with ; what is the living wage? 

Mr. Godfrey: That is one of the problems that has not 
been determined yet and which varies greatly in different 
places and under different conditions. It is an extremely 
difficult problem and needs an enormous amount of study; 
and it is being studied. 

Mr. Merrick: It seems to me that Mr. Tobin assumes 
that any increase in output carries a corresponding increase 
in effort or labor. It seems to me, from what I have gathered 
at the lectures, that the aim of Scientific Management is to 
increase the output, without increasing the effort of the 
workman. 



220 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Godfrey: And without increasing the effort of the 
workman to the point where he is tired out. Today, one- 
half the time, the workman is tired out at the end of the day. 

Mr. Tobin: If I make myself plain, I think it will make 
unnecessary a good many questions. I say that if I have 
ioo pairs of shoes to do, as a task, for a day's work, which 
will give me $3, and then I do another 100 — 

Mr. Slayton: Under the same conditions? 

Mr. Tobin: Under exactly the same conditions. 

Mr. Slayton: That can't exist under Scientific Manage- 
ment; you can't increase it. 

Mr. Tobin: I am speaking now of the so-called bonus 
system, and how much that would apply, and how much 
relationship there might be between that and Scientific 
Management. I don't know; I confess that; but that is 
the thing that I am afraid of, that many people will under- 
take to establish a bonus system. The imitators of the Taylor 
system will undertake that. That is an old, old story in the 
shoe business. These tasks have been given, and the man of 
great speed and capacity will, in his greed for more wages, do 
twice as much work for half as much more money, under 
exactly the same conditions. Now, that is one of the things 
that has made the enormous speed that you will find in the 
shoe factories today. You go into the modern shoe factory, 
and you will find every man working at top speed, and still 
it is said that there is a limitation of production. There 
never will be a time when it can be said with truth that there 
is a limitation of production. That is charged up against 
the shoemakers by the shoe manufacturers, but the fact is 
that the very reverse is true. I remember the time when I 
used to consider it a splendid day's work to do 200 pairs of 
ladies' shoes. In later years, I saw the time when I could do 
sixty pairs in an hour, if I wanted to go to a ball game. To- 
day, men can do twice as much. That is due to the fact 
that they have machinery to do it more easily. The round- 
ing machine makes it easier for the edge turner, and other 
conditions make it simpler and easier to do the work. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 221 

Mr. Slayton: I think we all understand Mr. Tobin now. 
The conditions he assumes cannot exist under Scientific 
Management; that is, asking a man to do double the task 
in the same conditions. 

Mr. Godfrey: Absolutely impossible. 

Mr. Slayton: It could not exist, and it could not be 
accomplished, I think. There would be such an uprising 
that I do not think anybody who understands Scientific 
Management would tolerate it. I think what you say, Mr. 
Tobin, is right; that from your particular position you have 
something to fear from the imitators, the unskilled and the 
unscientific management; but from what we will get from 
the learned, I do not think that you or the workingman has 
anything to fear, but everything to gain. 

Mr. Tobin: We are in the same position exactly with the 
quack doctor. 

Mr. Slayton: And the professional doctors. We all 
know after a while the quack doctors and the real doctors. 
Why? Because the real doctor has a reputation and the 
quack doctor has, too, but of a different kind. 

Mr. Tobin: In the same way that you tell the difference 
between mushrooms and toadstools. 

Mr. Slayton: It is getting late; I think it would be better 
than to ask questions if some of you would get up and tell 
what is the strongest impression that has been made on you 
by the lectures and papers that you have heard. It has cer- 
tainly made some impression, I think, on every member. We 
all listened with the inner idea of "How can we apply that 
to our particular business? How is it going to benefit me 
in my factory?" We have all made notes, either on paper 
or in our minds. Now, I think, if some who have been 
listening will tell what you have got out of this, it may 
benefit us all. 

Mr. Lane: May I ask if, in answering that proposition, 
some of the men might bring out whether they have studied 
in their factory any of the present means in the operations, 
so as to determine what the task should be, and whether this 



222 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

task problem can be developed and settled by some men in 
the factory, or whether we must go outside entirely to get 
an expert in order to accomplish it. 

Mr. Slayton: One thing I heard a manufacturer say, — 
I won't call him by name. He was making a woman's kid 
shoe, with patent leather tip, and he found a great deal of 
difference in the day's work. Some girls might do ten dozen, 
some might do twelve, and the next day they might fall 
back to eight. He told one girl that he wanted to see what 
she could do. He timed it, and found out she could do a 
great deal more. He said, "Are you willing to do it?" She 
seemed to be willing. He said, "Instead of paying you $1.50 
a day, I will give you $2 a day." She was getting $9 a week, 
and she doubled her production. She could do it easily. In 
the first place she said, "Well, there is a certain kind of filler 
that I used in another factory. If you will use that kind of 
filler, I can do my work so much more quickly. Another 
thing ; the paper that you are using on that tip is too coarse. 
If you will use a finer paper, I won't have to use so much 
filler." So that girl and this manufacturer worked out a 
condition that made it easier for her to perform more work. 
She got 33 per cent increase, 3 and he got a saving of 33 per 
cent, we will say, but the girl did not have to work any 
harder, because the two of them had found a method by 
which she could do more. Now Mr. Tobin, I know, would 
not object to that kind of an improvement. 

Mr. Tobin: Certainly not. 

Mr. Slayton: That is the most important feature of 
Scientific Management. One thing Mr. Taylor said last night, 
is that in talking with the manufacturers who make machines, 
he told them that not one out of fifty of their machines is 
speeded right. Now, that was the most startling thing, to 
me, that Mr. Taylor said last night. I don't know but my 
machines are speeded wrong. I know that at times the work- 
men have put a drag on their nigger-heads so they would go 
faster, and that they were running their machines too fast 
and we had to take them off. I know that at other times when 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 223 

we wanted to speed up we have speeded the machine up. 
I think there is a chance in the shoe manufacturing business 
to find out whether our machines are running at the right 
speed. Now, if the machine can be speeded up, for instance 
a trimmer, so that it can do a great deal more work, I don't 
know but that the workmen would be benefited; that is, if it 
could be done with reasonableness. It would have to be so 
that he could do it. You cannot put through science, I believe, 
unless both agree. I believe that you must convince the work- 
men. I think, for universal success in manufacturing, you 
must have the other fellow with you all the time. If you 
don't, you are going to be in trouble. 

Mr. Godfrey: Absolutely. Mr. Taylor's first considera- 
tion is the workman. 

Mr. Webner: The late Carroll D. Wright, the United 
States Labor Commissioner, said that instead of labor and 
capital being the same, they were reciprocal. That transac- 
tion is the best and most enduring for business which is 
beneficial alike to buyer and seller. 

I gathered from Mr. Tobin's remarks regarding 200 pairs 
as compared to 100 that he would favor withholding produc- 
tion, for the reason that he mentioned: it would be for the 
good of mankind. When he said that, I harked back to the 
days when, twenty-five years ago, I was carrying United States 
mail on the pony express in Montana. There was a cook at 
a ranch house there who was very bitterly opposed to rail- 
roads. We were about 125 miles north of the Northern 
Pacific, and I met him one time in Billings, and he actually 
turned his back on a railroad train. He wouldn't look at it, 
because he took the position that the railroads had been a curse 
to humanity. He said, "Look at the number of freighters that 
carried wheat and oats from Mandan and Bismarck into St. 
Paul. Look at the number of those men who were put out 
of business." I said, "On that same line between Mandan 
and St. Paul, there are this minute more brakemen employed 
than there were freighters, to say nothing of the conductors, 
station agents, telegraph operators, train despatchers and a 



224 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

hundred and one other employees of a railroad." Scientific 
Management, as I take it, is a survival of the fittest. 

I want to ask somebody who knows, if Scientific Manage- 
ment is based largely on the "sheet system"; I assume 
it is. 

Mr. Slayton: It is. The " sheet system," so-called, in a shoe 
factory is the planning room, the same as it is in a steel shop. 

Mr. Webner: I understand. Well, then, the efficiency 
system does not detract from that sheet system. 

Mr. Slayton: No. 

Mr. Reed : Mr. Prescott stated that the shoe business has 
been working under a Scientific Management plan for a great 
many years, and it is so ; but the thing it seems to me neces- 
sary to impress on Mr. Tobin, particularly, is that the desire 
on the part of every shoe manufacturer to improve his shoe 
business is the desire to improve the conditions for the men. 
If we are here listening to Scientific Management propaganda 
at all, it is because we believe that is the only possible founda- 
tion on which we can advance. Now, we don't want the man 
to do twice as much for one-third more. We want to im- 
prove the conditions; find a sandpaper that is less coarse; 
find a filler that is better; find some combination that is 
better for the workman, so that it is actually less work for 
them to do twice as much for us, and they are better satisfied 
at one-third more. 

Mr. Tobin: Mr. Chairman, before we adjourn, I want 
to say that we have in our organization a staff of men who 
are really experts. We don't call them expert systematizers, 
but just call them plain organizers. When wage questions 
arise in factories, they go and look the situation over, and if 
they can make a suggestion to the employer whereby he can 
change his system and method of doing work, and if he will 
act on that suggestion, it is equivalent to settling the question 
of wages. Hundreds upon hundreds of cases have been 
settled in that way where the workmen desired an increase 
in wages. Instead of the increase, we improved the system 
by a suggestion. You know manufacturers get into a rut. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 225 

Mr. Reed: That is what we are trying to get out of, Mr. 
Tobin. 

Mr. Tobin: They follow that year in and year out. If 
somebody comes and makes a suggestion that appeals to 
them, they make the change, and it is largely beneficial to 
them, and to the workman as well. We have had many 
settlements of wage questions without any increase in 
wages, but with an improvement in conditions. It is more 
satisfactory than if there had been the increase in wages. 

Mr. Slayton: I know that to be the fact, because 33 per 
cent of the cases that have come to me from our union shop 
in the last few years have been settled by that method. It 
is not because we put in Scientific Management. I was up 
watching the Goodyear stitchers one day, and I noticed 
the men who came to wind their bobbins. There was more 
or less waiting, but what jarred me most was that all 
around that bobbin-winder there were pieces of thread of 
different lengths, that those fellows had cut, all waxed. They 
stuck up the racks; they got into the wheels. I said to the 
foreman, ''Why do they have to cut off as much as that?" 
He said, "I don't know; they are in a hurry." I said, "Why 
don't you teach this boy to do it?" Well, as a matter of 
fact, I asked the men, and it took them about thirty minutes 
a day to wind those bobbins, because they had to wait, etc. 
I finally got a boy whom we paid $5 or $6 a week. We 
taught him to wind bobbins, and he didn't waste any of 
the thread. We found it took only half a day. We paid 
him for his work, and increased the workman's wages 10 
per cent. They told me, "If you hadn't done that, we would 
have asked an increase." We saved the thread, which paid 
for the boy. We didn't ask the workmen to pay us more. 

There are a lot of such things, in every factory I believe, 
that we can all study. We put that boy on a grooving welter 
because we didn't have enough for him to do on the other 
proposition. We got our welting grooved all alike, and it 
was much better. We saved an increased demand from the 
men by increasing their wages practically 10 per cent, — also 



226 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

an increased demand from the stitchers — just as much as if 
we had done it the other way, that is, by giving the task or 
bonus system. I think there are a great many situations like 
that. 

Mr. Lamb: I want to give a little example of Scientific 
Management, as far as we have seen it. Bottom-stamping 
in our factory has always been done by a boy. That is, the 
boy would size the shoes up, then he would bottom-stamp 
them, and they would go to the treeing room. It was always 
a troublesome point. We always had what we thought was a 
surplus of help there, and we began to analyze the operation of 
stamping bottoms, and sizing up those shoes. The shoes 
would come to him, oftentimes, in sixty-pair cases. He would 
sort them from a case on to an empty sixty-pair rack. In 
other words, he had two racks to sort to. Sometimes there 
might be more than six pairs that would go on one shelf 
conveniently. It resulted in our building a rack for sizing 
up shoes. Then in the stamping itself, we found that the 
boy was left-handed, and he was working with his right hand, 
on the right-hand side of his machine. He had a false motion. 
We changed that. 

Mr. Slayton: You didn't fire the boy? 

Mr. Lamb: No. We also inquired into the speed of the 
machine. I presume our methods were primitive, compared 
to what they may be eventually, but we got the machine 
speeded right. We corrected a little slipping which appeared 
in the clutch of the mechanism of the machine. That was 
brought to our knowledge by the boy's observation, and the 
final result was that he had his shoes on one side of the rack. 
He would stamp the shoe and sort it at the same operation. 
The boys were earning $9 a week. We set a task, and made 
the bonus $3, and are accomplishing the result. We are 
satisfied and they are satisfied. 

Mr. Slayton: And they are getting $12. 

Mr. Merrick: One strong impression that I have gained 
from these lectures is this, that it makes no difference what- 
ever, what the shoe manufacturers think of this system. The 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 227 

time is fast approaching when any man who stays in the game 
will be forced to adopt it. 

Mr. Donovan: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make one 
statement in reference to a change that was made in our 
factory some years ago. The machinery being out of line, 
we had an engineer come in to study how best to keep the 
stream moving. After we had taken his advice and had 
the machines rearranged we found we had saved thirty-seven 
miles a day, on pushing one rack of twenty-four pair of shoes 
straight ahead, — on not very good floors, at that. So, averag- 
ing it on either piece basis or day basis or salary basis, it was 
just the same. It was a saving for the men, as well as our- 
selves. To my mind, that is one of the instances of Scientific 
Management, or efficiency; call it what you will. 

Mr. Cushman: You ask for impressions. This is one 
impression that has been made upon my mind; this is in the 
shoe business, perhaps, especially. I say nothing about other 
trades. We have been endeavoring to fix the lowest pos- 
sible piece-price at which we could get our work done. 
Now, had we used half, perhaps, of the efforts which we can 
now use if we thoroughly understood all the methods of 
Scientific Management, to reduce our cost, we should have 
bettered the condition of our men, and also should have 
reduced the cost. In other words, we have made the condi- 
tions harder, and put up a fight for ourselves, when we might 
have had peace and harmony, and accomplished the results 
the other way, not only to our own advantage, but to the 
advantage of the men. This thing has happened when we 
had by a quick man fixed a low piece-price, and were satisfied 
with it. We left that thing; that was the end of it. Now, 
we are petered out; that man was not given another job. He 
was not attracted; that did not represent a yearly wage to 
him; it simply represented one day's work, or two days' or 
a week or a month, whereas he had to have bread 365 days 
in the year. Now, that has been the strongest thing that has 
come to my mind, the duty that we owe to ourselves and to 
our men to adopt this system, for just that one thing. 



228 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Reed: I should like to ask whether in piece-work or 
in day-work it has been easier to establish in the workman's 
mind the fact that he was to benefit by the scientific study. 

Mr. Godfrey: My idea is that in the piece-work it has 
been easier. 

Mr. Reed: I should like to ask how you proceed. Sup- 
pose a man is earning by the present piece-price $2.50 per 
day. What is the first move? 

Mr. Godfrey: The first move of any work that is to be 
changed is the deliberate study of the workman's environ- 
ment. Every possible effort is made to do away with all 
the nagging Which the workman is suffering from. There is 
no one item that takes more out of the average workman 
than not having the things where he wants them. All such 
things are, as far as possible, smoothed away. There is a 
preliminary cleaning up. There is a deliberate study made 
of the conditions under which the workman works and the 
assumption of all sorts of burdens by the management which 
were formerly carried by the workman. 

When these changes have been made, the laborer who has 
seen you working and doing these things realizes that you are 
doing the fair thing. When these things have been done you 
will begin to get the change of mental attitude, which must 
come before Scientific Management can exist. 

Mr. Tobin: You give an increase of wages to begin with? 

Mr. Godfrey: To the experimental men. 

Mr. Tobin: It is the common practice in shoe manufac- 
turing to get the workmen to agree to do work under a changed 
condition, on the promise of certain results, and instead of 
giving a premium or extra wages from the beginning, he gets 
reduced wages. 

Mr. Godfrey: We are not trying that at all; we are 
experimenting. We tell the man with whom we are experi- 
menting, "Half of what you are going to do may be thrown 
aside." We don't try to make him do anything except to 
have him help us to find out the truth. We simply want 
to know what is the right thing. We try things that we know 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 229 

are going to be wrong, sometimes to see how far they are 
wrong. 

Mr. Tobin: The company, the firm, is standing whatever 
loss there may be? 

Mr. Godfrey: And charging it to the experimental ex- 
pense. 

Mr. Tobin: It is the practice in the shoe business to ask 
the workmen to bear the expense. Is that a fair statement? 

Mr. Donovan: I hardly think that is fair. They might, 
in rare cases, feel that way. 

Mr. Reed: Most of us have blower systems in our fac- 
tories to take away the dust. Some of them are efficient, 
some are not. We think the atmosphere is not right in the 
room. It is not for our good, or for the good of the work- 
men, to have it that way. I, for one, think of putting in a 
new one. I propose to do it right, if I can find a man to do 
it. The finishers are working in a dusty atmosphere. The 
dust is not going out in the separator. It is flying all over. 
They are earning perhaps $2.50 a day. And now, suppose I 
try to see what I can do to increase their efficiency. I say, 
"We must have a clean workroom. We will put in a new 
system." Suppose we find the system works to perfection. 
The curtains are clean, instead of dusty. The whole outfit is 
a success from that point of view. What is the next step? 
We have bettered the condition under which that workman 
does his work. The next thing to my mind is the efficiency 
condition under which the man can finish the most bottoms; 
almost like the shoveling proposition. 

Mr. Godfrey: There is your question. 

Mr. Tobin: That is not the question I mean at all. 

Mr. Reed: No, but that is the question that confronts 
every manufacturer in trying to apply Scientific Management. 

Mr. Tobin: Suppose a manufacturer wants to change 
from day-work to piece-work. He says to the workmen, 
"I am going to make this change. You work a month, and 
I will pay you so much. If it is not all right, I will increase 
your wages." 



230 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Godfrey: The first thing that is to be done under those 
circumstances is to get at the task idea, to get a definite record 
of every workman's performance, to tabulate those perform- 
ances, and to have the tabulations go back to the foremen 
of all the large departments, so that they may examine them. 

Mr. Merrick: Suppose a dozen workmen are in a line, 
and they have decided that $15 a day will be the limit. How 
are you going to determine the fair basis? 

Mr. Godfrey: If you get the records of every depart- 
ment and every man in that department, you have a begin- 
ning. You have the workman's attitude towards the task; 
what he has been doing. There is your basis. 

Mr Cushman: This involves an account of every indi- 
vidual machine and every operator? 

Mr. Godfrey: Every one, and those records come in on 
the time-cards of the operatives. This is both day-rate and 
piece-rate. Every record that goes out has the stamp of the 
time and the man's labor. The man fills up everything else 
himself, signs it and sends it in. Of course it is inspected. 
Then all that information is charted, and you can see by 
the swing upwards of the graph where your production goes. 
That chart may be made by a $io-a-week clerk. Don't put 
your Scientific Management man to collecting record data. 

Mr. Donovan: In the installation of this system you 
take one man at a time? 

Mr. Godfrey: One man at a time. 

Mr. Donovan: And pay no attention to anything else 
until you get him where he is wanted? 

Mr. Godfrey: Until he is where he is wanted. There 
is no gang-work. 

Mr. Reed: Assuming that your man in charge of the 
scientific analysis arrives at a conclusion that a given operative 
has reached his maximum under certain conditions, what is 
the next? 

Mr. Godfrey: You see if your experimental man can 
repeat it. Then you are getting towards analysis and time- 
study. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 231 

Mr. Munn: That is to ascertain your present condition. 

Mr. Godfrey: And with that should be some record of 
the new work. In the machine-shop all machines are analyzed. 
That is one of the first steps. Mr. Sanford E. Thompson of 
Newton Highlands knows more of this than I. I should be 
glad to have him tell you of it. 

Mr. Thompson: I don't know whether the machinery that 
I have in mind would come, perhaps, nearer the machinery 
that you have in the shop that is not standardized. Let the 
shop be on piece-work or on day-work, and following along 
the scheme that you have outlined, I would say to a man to 
study that machine and to determine as far as he can by his 
observation the way the machine is operated, and any changes 
that can be made to make that machine more effective. 
This, of course, is assuming that routing is going on, and that 
material is coming through to the machine and going away 
from the machine in proper fashion. Then is the time to 
put on your time-study man to get at the actual task. 

Mr. Donovan: As a usual thing, Mr. Thompson, how 
long does it take to work up to this? How long a campaign 
is necessary? 

Mr. Thompson: Before you begin to take your task? 

Mr. Donovan: Yes. 

Mr. Thompson: That depends entirely upon your present 
condition. In doing lately some outside construction work, 
we have got on tasks within two weeks. We have been doing 
something on inside work where we didn't begin tasks until 
it had been going about a year and a half. There you have 
your extreme variation. It depends upon the simplicity of 
the work and upon how thoroughly it is organized. The 
point is that, before you can do any task work — get the men 
actually working on the task — you must have the work in 
such a way that the material all comes to them; that you 
know not only what material a man is going to work upon, 
but after it goes away from him, it must be kept straight. 
In other words, you must fix the working of the machine and 
the work of the man. Of course, in a good many shops — 



232 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

in shoe shops for example — I suppose the material is pretty 
well routed so you do know the work of your machines. It 
might be in some cases in the machine-shop that you could 
get down to your task work pretty soon. Shouldn't you 
think so, Mr. Godfrey? 

Mr. Godfrey: I should judge a good many of your tasks 
would come very easily. 

Mr. Thompson: I suppose you understand Mr. Taylor's 
principle, brought out in his different writings, — the separa- 
tion of the operation into the individual units? 

Mr. Donovan: That has all been completed to a great 
extent in the factory. Now you are going to subdivide 
that. Is that the idea? 

Mr. Thompson: Mr. Godfrey was talking of the task as 
a whole. He did not take up the detailed study of the ele- 
ments concerned in an operation. I might say as an extension 
of what Mr. Godfey has said, that we study the individual 
operations on a given machine. 

Mr. Munn: The first operation might be taking a shoe 
from the rack, for instance, and the next putting it into the 
machine. Isn't that what you mean? 

Mr. Thompson: Yes, taking the shoe off the rack would 
be the same for all kinds of shoes; putting it in the machine 
would be the same thing for all kinds of shoes, you might 
say. The sewing would vary in the different sizes, and it 
would vary with different shoes. I don't know anything 
about the shoe business, so I am speaking in a general way. 
If your leather is thick, I suppose it might be more work to 
sew it. Then taking out the shoe would be the same for 
each machine. It is a very crude illustration, but the point 
is that when you come down to time-study, you have in any 
general operation perhaps three or four or half a dozen opera- 
tions that are the same for different classes of work, and two 
or three operations that vary. When you have a different 
material, all you have to do is to time those few operations 
that vary, and then by a combination, you can get the work 
for any material, or any kind of work that you have. That 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 233 

is, you can tabulate that and put it on a table so that you 
will have the unit. 

Mr. Munn: Would it be possible for you to make a chart? 

Mr. Cushman: A tabulation of these operations in their 
order? 

Mr. Munn: A tabulation of the things that would be 
done in observing an operation; that is, the machine, the 
speed of it; all the things we have talked over here, for 
instance, in their regular order? 

Mr. Thompson: I was thinking whether you could make 
a definite tabulation that would be applicable to different 
machines. Each one is a study by itself, in a way. For 
instance, you must study speed by itself. That, of course, 
is one of the things, but every machine has so many different 
problems it is pretty hard to tell just what to tackle first, and 
how to study it. But having got your material, and your 
men so they are working in a uniform manner, you begin 
your time-studies. I was thinking what would be the best 
class of work to illustrate time-studies. Well, perhaps you 
might take, for instance, paper cutting. We have a cutting 
machine, a table with a cutter across, and the paper comes 
to the man on one side. He lifts paper to machine; adjusts 
pile on machine. Then the mass is cut. Then he removes 
his paper. That seems like a very simple proposition, but, 
for example, on a cutting machine the machine will cut a 
certain thickness. It will cut, perhaps, five inches in thick- 
ness, but if the sheets are large a man can't handle that 
entire five inches. So he must take, say an inch of paper, 
and put it on the machine, and then another inch of paper and 
put it on top, and if there are six inches, he will have six 
lifts. I am speaking of an actual case, an actual problem 
that came up to us. We were supposed to put a cutting 
machine on piece-work, and the people who asked us to 
do it thought it could be done in a few days' time. Now, 
suppose that that paper is 48X60. We will have, as I say, 
six layers of one inch thickness. Now, suppose you have 
paper 48X48. There he can take an inch and a quarter. 



234 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Suppose you have paper that is glazed; you can't take an 
inch, because it works differently; you can only take three- 
quarters of an inch at the same size. There you have a lot of 
variables to study. When you come to take off the paper, you 
take a different amount. The man can handle it more easily, 
and does not take the same number of lifts. When you come 
to this one machine, you have to study the quality of the paper, 
the amount a man can lift, the thickness of the lift as governed 
by the quality of the paper, and the total maximum cut that 
the machine can make, which sometimes varies with the quality 
of the paper, too. In other words, some kinds of paper you can 
cut six inches; other kinds work differently under the knife, so 
you can cut only five inches. There you have your variables, 
and having studied those out, the paper, as it comes to the 
machine, has slips of paper in it to tell how much a man should 
take for a cut. It is divided up and is counted off before 
it comes. It has to be counted anyway. They simply put 
in a paper in the right place, so that instead of his taking, as 
usual, four inches in one cut and six inches in another cut, he 
takes six inches in every cut; that is, he puts six lifts of 
paper on each time, instead of putting four lifts some times 
and six others. 

Mr. Merrick: Why couldn't that paper come to the 
machine on an adjustable bench, to cut the proper thickness, 
and to slide it and lift it; go to the cutter on a rack that would 
lift four or six? 

Mr. Thompson: It might, with some kinds of paper, but 
where you have large paper — 

Mr. Merrick: Suppose the rack were so adjusted that 
you could put on a three-foot pile of paper, and the paper 
was three feet below the cutting-knife. 

Mr. Thompson: That is just one of those things that you 
want to study out, to see if you can make those changes. 

Mr. Merrick: We wouldn't let him lift the paper. 

Mr. Thompson : One point, just to illustrate the difference 
in your time-studies. Suppose we have a 60X48 and another 
48X48. When you come to your time-study, as a general 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 235 

proposition, you will find that a man can lift one-fifth more 
of 48X48, so that your time, which is based on pounds lifted, 
can be obtained for any number of pounds of paper. I don't 
know whether I make that clear. Suppose we take time- 
studies on lifting one inch of 60X48. Then he would lift 
one-fifth more of 48X48. In other words, the size is smaller, 
therefore he could lift a greater thickness in the same time. 
That would have to be studied out by taking occasional times; 
for instance, taking the time on 72X60, and another time on 
48X48, and another time on 24X24, and plotting them, so 
as to give the curve. In that way, you get the time per 
lift for any size paper. It is probable that it would work out 
the same per pound. My point that I want to emphasize 
is just this, that a great many of these items are the same in 
your different operations. 

Mr. Donovan: If you eliminate the other operations, 
that man can keep on cutting more steadily, if the paper 
is fed to him. 

Mr. Thompson: Yes. 

Mr. Donovan: So that in subdividing the job into four 
sections, when the machine was being used, say, only 40 per 
cent of the time, he is enabled to use it 80 per cent to 85 
per cent of the time if the paper is fed to him, taken away, 
etc. That is, a skilled laborer would double his work, and 
the unskilled would bring it to him. Is that the scheme? 

Mr. Thompson: Yes. 

Mr. Donovan: When you have nine skilled men and they 
are replaced by unskilled men, what becomes of the nine men 
who were earning skilled men's wages? Say that cutter was 
earning $20 a week, and he was only working, actually, 40 
per cent of the time. Now, if he cuts 80 per cent or 85 per 
cent of the time, he is doing the work of two, or two and a 
quarter, cutters. What are you going to do with those you 
have eliminated? 

Mr. Thompson : Then you come to the same problem that 
Mr. Godfrey has been discussing tonight. You put them on 
other work. 



236 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Donovan: If you are employing 1,000 hands, say? 

Mr. Slayton: Mr. Taylor's lecture last night answered 
that question, I think quite thoroughly; that when the 
cotton machinery was put in the mills in Manchester, England, 
for the first time, the people who had been doing the work by 
hand thought their life job was taken away, and they did just 
what you or I would do. They broke into the shop and 
destroyed the machinery. But the cotton machinery stayed, 
and now today it has become so cheap that the common 
laborer wears a cotton shirt. In those days, he could not wear 
a cotton shirt. It has always proved that where labor-saving 
machinery has been put in, it has increased the production 
capacity, so there were more laborers used. Another thing, 
by materially cheapening the cost of a manufactured article, 
it widens the market. 

Mr. Donovan: Increases the demand for it. 

Mr. Godfrey: The trouble has never been in throwing 
the skilled laborer out of employment; it has been in getting 
him to do the job. It has actually acted the other way. 
Your skilled men are hard to get. 

Mr. Merrick: Isn't this the fact, that in the case Mr. 
Donovan cites, the paper cutters are skilled in that one job, 
and the manufacturer hasn't any room for them anywhere 
else in his factory except cutting paper, and he reduces his 
paper cutters say from twenty to twelve on account of 
more efficient work? Now, why don't we admit right away 
that those eight men have to find another job? Why don't 
we admit that those men must temporarily suffer? 

Mr. Thompson: I was talking, in the factory where Mr. 
Gantt has been, with a mechanical engineer who was con- 
nected with the factory; the talk had nothing to do with 
Scientific Management in any way. He was talking about 
his output from year to year. He said the curve ran up in 
quite a sharp line the last two years. It has been going up 
very sharply. I said, "What have you done? Have you 
increased your building and your force?" "No," he said. 
"We have just the same force that we had before, and just 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 237 

the same building, but we are turning out double the work 
we did before." 

Mr. Donovan: Suppose that by increasing your efficiency 
you can produce the same number of shoes in a third shorter 
time, and that the natural growth of the business is not enough 
to allow you to replenish the orders. What are you going to 
do then for the shortage? 

Mr. Godfrey: Your sales curves are going to determine 
that to a large degree, because, while you are getting data 
for everything else, your sales department must get busy and 
help along. 

As regards the eight men mentioned, the old idea would 
be: "Those eight men are no good. We are sorry, but there 
is nothing more for you. Get out." I can't say that all those 
eight men would be employed, but there would be the hardest 
kind of a try to find what those eight men could do. I 
believe you would find every man satisfied with his new job. 

Mr. Donovan: We are not letting down on our sales 
now, we are selling every pair we can. 

Mr. Slayton: All those eight men are not going to be 
eliminated, because you are going to have more supervision. 

Mr. Godfrey: With Scientific Management there are a 
lot of positions for the skilled men. One of the men will be 
an instructor, others you take into the planning room to do 
routing. As a matter of fact, I do not know personally of 
any case where work has not been found for every man. 
Somebody will say, "That man is too swift; he ought to be 
doing something else." There is an opening in another posi- 
tion, which is at least as good as the one he leaves. It is 
adjusting the man to the job, where in the other case it was 
a sifting out and a survival of the fittest. 

Mr. Donovan: If you are using all these men, and in 
addition several more, whom you will hire for minor positions, 
why isn't your production costing you more than it was 
when you started in? 

Mr. Godfrey: Because your production is greatly in- 
creased. A very large proportion of your production cost 



238 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

is the overhead expense. By every additional pair of shoes 
you put out, you are reducing your overhead expense per pair. 

In the second place, in every factory there is a certain 
natural shrinkage, which goes from 10 per cent to 15 per 
cent, and the changes of men have come almost entirely 
from that floating population. The best thing we can do 
is to speak from experience. Don't you imagine you lose 
10 per cent of your operatives in a year? 

Mr. Donovan: Oh, yes. I think so. I think that is 
conservative. 

Mr. Godfrey: That 10 per cent which drifts is not in 
the place it is needed. We can fairly well leave them out 
of the question. As regards the rest let me give you an 
illustration of what happened a while ago. A mill was being 
organized under Scientific Management, and in a certain room 
there were about forty girls who were put out of employment 
in reorganizing that room. The Woman's Club of the town, 
hearing that forty girls had been dropped, became indignant, 
and as the engineer in charge was in town, they sent a 
delegation of five ladies to him. He listened, and said, 
"This is very sad. If you will go and get the names of the 
girls who have been put out of employment, and just bring 
them to me, I will see what I can do." The engineer saw 
nothing of these ladies for some time, but later he saw three 
of them at a reception and asked them what was the matter. 
The delegation was forced to confess that the girls had all 
found jobs, in the same plant or in other places. 

Mr. Luitwieler: I think we are very much indebted, 
both to Mr. Godfrey and to Mr. Thompson. We have worked 
about twelve hours today, and I don't know what Mr. Tobin 
will fine us. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 239 



IV. PRINTING AND PUBLISHING 

Leader, MORRIS LLEWELLYN COOKE 

ConsvXling Engineer, Philadelphia 

Mr. Gray (Secretary of the Tuck School): In the tem- 
porary absence of Mr. Cooke, we have asked Mr. Edwin S. 
Browne, of the Curtis Publishing Co., Philadelphia, to lead 
the meeting. 

Mr. Browne: I am sorry that Mr. Cooke is not here. 
He seems to be in demand at several discussions at the same 
time. The function I am about to perform seems to me 
decidedly like that we heard about yesterday afternoon, of 
the fireman on the oil-burning locomotive on the Santa Fe 
road who sits with his thumb and finger at the flow of the 
oil, and you others will be the mechanism. At the Curtis 
Publishing Company the work of establishing Scientific 
Management is in the very early stages, so I scarcely feel 
qualified to give our experience as of value for application 
in another place. Discussion and exchange of views on prob- 
lems that are current rather than finished, seem to me some- 
times more helpful than a lot of detail of what has been done 
by some one who has gotten by the difficult period and, con- 
sequently, looks upon some of his difficulties through the 
kind of lens that diminishes things of the past. 

No one connected with the printing business can fail to 
realize the complex nature of the problems of management. 
There are so many phases in the business itself; the kind of 
product, unionized labor, the contrast between the miscel- 
laneous and the one-product shop; we have almost as many 
problems as you find in the various kinds of machine manu- 
facture. 

There have been a number of things that have appealed 
to me. Some have been very distinctly emphasized by what 
has been said at this conference. Mr. Kendall suggested 
this afternoon a consideration of the psychological elements. 



240 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

The different kinds of labor, for instance, appeal to me as a 
point in which methods can be elaborated beyond what I 
believe they have been. It is in connections of that sort that 
very possibly lies a large field for combination with academic 
investigation along the same line. There is so much of that 
sort of thing which is ready for application to real industrial 
problems. Of course, in the printing and publishing business 
we have so many operations in finishing, which depart so far 
from the orthodox elements of the printing line, that there 
comes a wider and wider scope for the development of the 
management which covers the complexities as well as the 
simpler elements of the printing itself. 

Mr. Vawter: Do you know of many plants which have 
adopted Scientific Management? 

Mr. Browne: I should hesitate to say what the number 
is. They are very few. That is a question I should like to 
have Mr. Cooke answer directly. 

Mr. Vawter: Do you know whether any which have 
adopted it are doing a miscellaneous business? 

Mr. Browne : The Forbes Lithograph Company of Boston 
is establishing the Taylor system in its entirety. Of course, 
it is in the preliminary stages, those stages which represent 
the most difficult operations of the work. Mr. Cooke him- 
self is engineering the work there. You can judge very 
readily how far the work has been extended at the Plimpton 
Press by what Mr. Kendall said this afternoon. 

Mr. Vawter: What is the character of the work pro- 
duced there? 

Mr. Browne: Printing and publishing, books almost 
entirely. The Forbes Lithograph Co. does a large general 
printing business. Is Mr. Rowe of the Plimpton Press here? 
If so, we would like to hear from him. 

Mr. Rowe: Our work is composition, printing and bind- 
ing, and our first step along the line of Scientific Management 
was in connection with the binding. Two or three years 
before this movement started, we had reached the second 
type of management which Mr. Kendall described this after- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 241 

noon, and some of us thought that we were doing pretty 
well at that point, but the introduction of Scientific Manage- 
ment is producing much improvement. Mr. Kendall has 
suggested something of what it is capable of doing in the 
different departments. 

Mr. Browne: Have you the bonus system established? 
You have it in the bindery? 

Mr. Rowe: To some extent. 

Mr. Browne: Have you made any attempt to establish 
the bonus system in the press-work department? 

Mr. Rowe: No, not in the press-work department. 

Mr. Cooke: A conference with Governor Bass kept me 
from getting here in time for the opening of this meeting, and 
I want to apologize to you all for not getting here on time. 

Mr. Browne: I have announced to the gentlemen here 
that you had contemplated talking to them, and as a penalty 
for your being late, we expect to hear quite at length from 
you. 

Mr. Cooke: It is pretty late, and I had not thought to 
say very much, but there are a few things I should like to say 
which will take about five minutes; then we will proceed with 
the informal discussion. 

It seems to me that in the discussion of Scientific Manage- 
ment in the printing industry you must consider the nature 
of the industry as compared with others. The introduction 
is going to come, in my opinion, very slowly, for the simple 
reason that the census returns show that the number of estab- 
lishments is increasing rather than diminishing, and that the 
average size of the product of the printing plants between 
the years 1900 and 1905 went down rather than up. That 
means that the process of simplification going on in other 
industries is probably not present in the printing industry 
to the same extent. Whether that will change as years pass 
we cannot tell. 

Take the electric light industry, where the gathering of 
control into a very few hands has given rise to the National 
Electric Light Association with their laboratories and experi- 



242 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

mental work, so that the gain of one plant is almost immedi- 
ately made the gain of another. If a man wants to get a 
lamp tested, he sends it to this laboratory. It is tested there 
and the other companies get the result of that examination 
very promptly. That centralized control in the printing 
industry is absolutely lacking, and is something which must 
be considered in connection with the question how Scientific 
Management can be applied to it. 

Another point is the natural conservatism of the printers. 
I suppose that comes from the fact that there are so many 
small, isolated plants. We are more like farmers. We 
haven't the spirit of cooperation to the extent that a good 
many other industries have. You can see that in the slow- 
ness with which the cost idea has taken hold. I have a book, 
which I prize, that I bought in '89 for $1 of Isaac Blanchard 
in New York. It is called Blanchard 's Complete Cost 
System. I bought this twenty-two years ago, and the 
system outlined in that book is almost the same as is now 
being put out by the National Cost Congress. Of course 
it has been revised, and many obvious things cut out; but 
from the standpoint of philosophy, it is the same thing. 
Mr. Kendall has eight men in the country now trying to 
introduce a cost system born twenty-two years ago. 

I do not know of any branch of the industry which is not 
absolutely dominated by what mathematicians call "trial 
and error." Perhaps the best example of it is the title-page. 
For instance, a man goes to the case when he is given his copy 
and picks out a letter in some face or other, sees whether it 
will go in the line, or sees if it looks right when it is in the line. 
If not, he distributes it and starts all over again. Now, with 
Scientific Management that would all be done in the proper 
way. He would have absolute instructions as to what to 
do, and when he put 3 or 333 characters together they 
would fit. We can't see how it can be done, but it will be 
done, because more difficult problems have been solved in 
other lines. That same thing applies to every part of the 
work in which we are interested. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 243 

The greatest single difficulty I know of is the foreman. 
The foremen in the industries connected with the printing 
business are the most competent I come in contact with in 
my industrial practice, and we demand more of them than is 
demanded of foremen in any other lines. I think the fore- 
man of the composing room is the most abused of them all. 
We have trained him to expect to perform so many more 
functions than it is "possible for him to perform, that I think 
he is the most difficult problem for the average man in the 
printing business to face. 

We are going to make the foreman, as a matter of fact, a 
bigger man than he ever has been. But as long as he does 
not see it that way he does make a difficult problem. Unless 
you have had the experience that goes with the practice of 
industrial engineering, and know how gradually to take away 
from the foreman some of the things he has been doing, and 
in this way give him more time to perform the functions that 
need his personal attention; unless that can be done for a 
period of years, you will find at the end of two or three months, 
or two or three years, that that foreman mentally is the same 
individual you started with; and without his cooperation, 
without his willingness to have some of his functions taken 
away in order that he may devote more time to the things 
that are left, the solution of the problem is impossible. 

I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that the average 
superintendent of a plant, the average foreman of a depart- 
ment, ought to devote only 10 per cent of his time to the 
things he does now; in other words, he floats in about ten 
times as much work as he can really do. 

In my opinion we are now engaged in a work that cannot 
be stopped. It has gone beyond the point where it could be 
stopped. Results in printing establishments have been too 
notable and too successful to allow the thing to stop. 

Mr. Smith: What success have you had in the cylinder 
press-room problem? 

Mr. Cooke: The press-room problem is the big problem 
of the industry, and we haven't really touched it. I will not 



244 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

say that we haven't made any impression upon it. I have 
never been afraid of the press problem as some people are. 
I have felt that it is the big, difficult problem in the sense 
that it is a long problem, and is going to involve most 
radical changes in machinery and methods. I was told two 
years ago by a man who, I think, is perhaps the best designer 
of machinery in the country, that the printing-press is built 
on fundamentally wrong lines. I have some idea of what he 
meant by that. We haven't got far enough into it to know 
that this is true, but I believe the cylinder printing-press is 
going to be materially altered before we get much farther 
along. 

In the bindery, in what we call finishing, the operations 
are all right on the table. They are comparatively simple; 
the number of conditions that have to be controlled are 
limited compared with those in the operations of the cylinder 
press. 

I think the setting of type by the monotype and linotype 
machines has brought about a revolution, and it will not be 
long before all hand composition disappears. I would not 
advise any time-study on setting type by hand; I should 
absolutely eliminate that, because when we get some of the 
other things out of the way, that will not be a problem. 

In the setting of type I personally have done some work, 
and have had a man associated with me on it, trying to deter- 
mine the character of the problems which must be solved. 
If we take the length of a page, we know by setting certain 
type together — eight, ten or twelve-point, any one of them — 
and adding the type, the space it will occupy. For example, 
if you set the words "Tuck School of Administration and 
Finance" in thirteen-point Scotch we know how long a space 
it is going to occupy. This is an easy thing, — we have got 
to the point where we can tell within 3 per cent or 4 per cent. 
Probably if you could give an advertising agency tables by 
which they could lay out their copy, they could determine 
before it is sent to the printer whether it could be set in one 
face of type or another; making it unnecessary to tear it out 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 245 

four, five or six times as is usually done. That would simplify 
matters a good deal, particularly the advertising matter. It 
is only a question of time, with such men as Bancroft working 
on it, before practically all that type will be set by machine. 
I do not mean that it is coming tomorrow. I understand the 
monotype machine can set thirty-six-point type. 

Mr. Fuilder: Do you not think the part of Scientific 
Management which applies to the management end most 
directly is just as easy to apply to a printing establishment 
as anywhere? 

I am a publisher, a printer. Now take an example. We 
have a book to be set up in ten-point type leaded one and 
one-half; we give it to the printer with those instructions; 
and the job comes back to us leaded two. We have another 
job and mark it to be set up in nine-point type; and it comes 
back eight-point, and the office is out the job. Now what 
are we going to do about that? It seems to me Scientific 
Management can get right on the job without waiting fifteen 
years. 

Mr. Cooke: I was in an office in Philadelphia one day, 
and the proprietor was personally answering the telephone 
calls when some jobs were ready to be delivered. I tried to 
argue with him that that was not the highest function he 
could perform. He said he was not able to throw off all 
these things that he should. I told him each individual ought 
to use his highest faculties to the best advantage. When a 
proprietor spends his time answering the telephone and run- 
ning out into another room to see if a job is finished or not, I 
think there is a chance for big improvement. 

Mr. Browne: I was talking the other day with a man in 
a large printing plant (not in Philadelphia) who is a big man, 
a man who has gone through the routine of practical training 
and is looked upon as having a lot of common sense; he holds 
a big position. His statement to me was, "I am not big 
enough for my job; I am constantly doing things I have no 
business to do, but I can't seem to get away from doing them." 
This man is a thorough believer in routing, considers it as 



246 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

absolutely the first essential to large printing orders, and yet 
he doesn't see his way to getting hold of the right applica- 
tion; even after he has worked it out in theory. 

Mr. Cooke: It would be instructive to have each printer 
here in the room state what seems to him the principal handi- 
cap in applying these methods in his own shop? 

Mr. Howe : In the printing office we have a general work- 
ing system. We use the postal card system for our orders. 
Our customers insist on proofs, and we cannot tell when 
proofs are coming back because they never come back when 
they are promised. That makes it necessary for the foreman 
to plan the work over and over again during the day. The 
work of our office is very different from the Norwood Press, 
where they start in manufacturing a book and the work goes 
to one room after another. Scientific Management in our 
office would have to begin with the composing room. Some- 
body would have to take the copy and write on the margin 
all the different details, and then we would have to increase 
the number of foremen, or at least teachers, so as to put less 
responsibility on the compositor. 

Mr. Cooke: You would have to come to making your 
copy instruction card absolutely complete. In regard to 
the proof coming back from customers, that, of course, is a 
very serious thing; but I think it is due in part to the attitude 
that "it is up to somebody else." We must do it ourselves 
and keep punching the customers. 

A man told me that in his establishment in Philadelphia 
they found so much difficulty in getting certain firms to send 
in their work when they said they would, that he told them, 
"When you make a promise see that you five up to it." They 
have tried the experiment of having a high-priced man go to 
the telephone and call up a concern the day its work was 
promised, and say, " Yesterday you said such and such a thing 
would be delivered Thursday, the thirteenth. Is that promise 
still good?" They would say "Yes" and he would say "All 
right." The next day he would do the same thing. As a 
result they eliminated a good deal of delay. I believe we 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 247 

shall see the time when, as we send out proofs we shall get a 
promise from the customer when he is going to send them back, 
and by means of the tickler we shall be able to follow him 
up. But this idea of outstanding proofs coming in tomorrow 
morning will not work, and I don't know how Scientific 
Management will bring it about. I think I should take my 
worst customers, and my most particular customers, and try 
to get into the habit of reminding them periodically. 

Mr. Howe: What if the customers live out of town? 

Mr. Cooke: I was manager in a publishing house and 
I had great respect for those printers who knew I was in 
arrears. Isn't that a psychological fact? 

Mr. Smith: I am not able to judge what is the best thing 
to be done in the press-room. 

Mr. Cooke: You mean trying to work out some scheme 
to better conditions? I think Mr. Howe's remarks very 
suggestive. What would you call the most difficult thing 
in the press-room problem to solve? There is no man in any 
better position to know than you. 

Mr. Smith: I don't know that I can say. We have what 
is called systematic management. We aim to have the jobs 
very closely watched. We have a man who plans the work 
ahead so that there is no delay on the press, and no delay on 
the paper. I have no doubt that under Scientific Management, 
by a close study of the subject, there would be some gains 
in some ways. What those are, I don't know, as I haven't 
made a study of the subject. Our particular business is press- 
work. We have a large press-room. The economies gained in 
one room, multiplied by fifty would amount to considerable. 
I do not doubt but that there are some small savings we could 
gain, and we hope to some time, although I feel we have a 
good system today. 

Mr. Cooke: I have been in your press-room and I know 
you have a fine system. 

Mr. Howe: I understand there are some places where 
they use a cut overlay of paper and after taking an impression, 
they put it in a bath of acid. They claim that they cut down 



248 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

the time considerably. A traveling man told me this week 
that in one office in Hartford they had increased their press 
capacity 30 per cent overlay cut out. Now there is no man 
allowed to cut so as to increase the product 30 per cent, I 
believe. 

Mr. Browne: On flat work they use the straight cut 
overlay — they do use an overlay on the flat work — it is 
not the chalk lay. 

Mr. Howe: I understand from our foreman that Berwick 
& Smith use it to some extent. 

Mr. Browne: The thing, to one without a technical 
knowledge of it, may look in error. As an indication of what 
must come in printing is the development of the Mackay 
process used at the Curtis Publishing Company. The plate 
itself is made perfectly true so the question of "make-ready" 
is practically eliminated. As regards the process itself, it 
is not perfect yet, but does very good work. I have thought 
for a long time that something of that sort, perhaps part of 
the revolution of the printing-press, is a machine that will be 
of tremendous help, but will mean a tremendous change. 

Mr. Cooke: The thing always offended me, — that when 
you put your type form on a plain surface, true it up to the 
foot of the type and put it on the press, you are not sure then 
of its being true. I should like to hear from Mr. Rowe who 
has had much experience in coming in contact with the out- 
side printing shops, and who has obtained harmony between 
the outside and inside printing establishments. I should 
like to have him tell us, as he sees it, the ultimate future of 
Scientific Management. 

Mr. Rowe: In my particular line of work of dealing 
with customers and the sales department on the one 
hand, and with the manufacturing in the bindery on the 
other, I can see a vast advantage gained through Scientific 
Management. Through the functionalizing of work of this 
character, the strain on the individual is relieved and the 
efficiency increases. The ultimate result can be nothing 
but enormously increased efficiency. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 249 

I begin to see where there is corning to me personally a 
relief from the strain caused by the overload of trying to 
perform too many functions. 

The responsibility, however, on any one is correspond- 
ingly increased when he performs only one or a very few 
functions. 

In answer to the question, "Does a person who works under 
Scientific Management become a machine?" I will say, I 
think he does in so far as he does work with the machine-like 
precision which increases his efficiency, so that he becomes a 
consistent part of the whole organization instead of a jumble 
of inefficient wheels working independently. That is the 
effect of Scientific Management, as far as it has been applied 
to my own work. 

Mr. Browne: I think, of course, that with the placing of 
Scientific Management you cannot make demands on any- 
body of things he cannot do. 

Mr. Rowe: In reference to that man in Philadelphia who 
said he could not throw off duties, it might be a good thing 
to have somebody sit down beside him, study his methods 
and tell him tactfully some of the things he needs to do. It 
is really one of the hardest things for most of us to do, to take 
criticism from anybody. We are not receptive in taking 
suggestions from outside. I think some of us in our plant 
have gained most in efficiency through this especial point in 
Scientific Management. 

Mr. Smith: The foreman, being a capable man of experi- 
ence, does too many things. 

Mr. Cooke : The only way that I have found automatically 
to stop people from doing things they should not do is to 
state their duties in writing. When it is in writing, they seem 
to be willing to do things that they would not otherwise do, — 
if it is in writing they absolutely have to do it. Sometimes I 
wish there were no telephoning between departments. There 
are times when the more you can do in writing the better. 
It is a splendid check on unnecessary labor. We have made 
studies of people and have found that the clerks, especially, 



250 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

spend most of their time walking back and forth. Day before 
yesterday, one of the girls in a certain office was going to send 
a telephone message to the floor below. I said to her, "Why 
don't you write a note about it?" So she did, — I think it 
took about ten or twelve words — and before I left her desk 
the answer to the note had come back. 

Are there any further questions that anybody would like 
to ask? 

Mr. Rowe: We have been inquiring at our place con- 
cerning the best way to give an order. 

Mr. Cooke: I think that in the printing business, where 
there are so many details, it gets on our nerves very frequently. 
In giving instructions and in correcting people for having made 
mistakes, we sometimes put considerably more emphasis into 
what we say than is done in other lines of business. I have 
noticed that some establishments carry it so far that the 
people who are reproved for making errors are likely to make 
more errors as a result of the reproval than they had made 
before. The rule I have tried to use is not to get into con- 
versations after four o'clock in the afternoon, because in a 
printing office after that hour the tension on everybody is 
very great. I find that, if I postpone my remarks until the 
next morning, the things that happened after four o'clock 
the day before seem to be trifles. From the standpoint of 
Scientific Management, if you can impress your employees 
with the fact that you are cooperating with them, the ones 
you have had to reprove in the past, as a general thing you 
will find, are less likely to fall down in the future. Unless 
you do cooperate with them the whole thing is off, because 
that is the spirit and substance of Scientific Management. 

Mr. Morrison: In regard to the plants which have put 
in the cost system, of course the cost system shows a printer 
whether he makes any money on a certain job or not; it also 
shows the high price he has to put on a job to make any money 
on it; but in putting this high price on it he loses the work, 
for the printer who has not put in the cost system makes 
a lower price and gets the job. The other man loses the 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 251 

business. Under Scientific Management would this condition 
be changed? 

Mr. Cooke : I think the industry is too big to be affected 
by that sort of thing. What you want is to do it 10 per 
cent cheaper than anybody else. Now in Scientific Man- 
agement the gain comes from letting the other fellow do the 
work you are losing money on. 

Mr. Dreier: In the Forbes Lithograph Company do you 
plan all your work? Do you have a planning department? 
Can the men tell what type to use for the work before it goes 
to the printer? 

Mr. Cooke : We have not extended the planning part under 
Scientific Management to the point where that statement 
could be made, but a great deal of work connected with the 
printing industry is thoroughly planned. All the details 
of the routing of work, for instance, and planning for it, are 
carried out in certain parts of the industry with almost as 
much precision as is done in the Tabor Manufacturing Com- 
pany. 

I think ten years from now it will be possible to make 
instructions for composition so they will be very much more 
complete, so we shall have a pure style. Men are going to 
come into the business. It is not necessary to standardize 
the things we know are wrong themselves. 

Mr. Morrison: Would you treat as three entirely differ- 
ent trades, composition, the press-room and the binding; or 
would you have one man plan for the whole three? 

Mr. Cooke: Absolutely alike. That to me goes with the 
foreman; that is what I consider the unfortunate feature: 
90 per cent of the work in the press-room is exactly 
like 90 per cent in the bindery. You will see that if you 
analyze it. The machines are different, but if you analyze 
the machines you will find that they both need the use of an 
oil-can and so on; they are 90 per cent alike. What we 
are going to do is to emphasize the things that are alike in 
the different departments and stop the things that are differ- 
ent. The discipline is the same. 



252 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



V. PULP AND PAPER MANUFACTURE 

Leader, MINER CHIPMAN 
The Emerson Co., Consulting Engineers, New York 

Mr. Chipman: My experience in doing efficiency work 
in paper-mills has been limited, consisting of one contract 
only, and then only in a part of the work, the calendering 
and coating rooms; so when it comes to the practical applica- 
tion of the principles of Scientific Management to the pulp- 
mill I should not be at all familiar with that. I have thought 
that I would briefly outline at the beginning the chief prob- 
lems which presented themselves to our company and to the 
men engaged upon the contract. We found first that the 
operations in a paper-mill were very similar to those in a flour- 
mill — in a way, largely mechanical — and that the number 
of employees involved was exceedingly limited. Secondly, 
we found that there were no records of definite standards. 
There had been maintained a great many records of the busi- 
ness in the past, but these pointed to no definite standards; 
so we had to develop in our own way methods for ascertain- 
ing them for calendering, in the chemical, mechanical and 
manual operations. Third, we found that chemical opera- 
tions, something with which we were absolutely unfamiliar 
and incompetent to cope with, were exceedingly variable, 
and at that point it was necessary to call in the assistance of 
a man as special adviser from the chemical laboratory of the 
mill. Fourth, we found variations in chemical materials. 
Fifth, we found variations in stock requirements. Sixth, we 
found variations in the organization. 

In almost the first conference with the management the 
superintendent said, "The first thing you will find, Mr. 
Chipman, is the deplorable idiosyncrasies of the paper busi- 
ness." I looked very wise. I had been used to it. In every 
other plant in which I had been, the manager would say, 
"Our business is just a little different from any other business 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 253 

which I have been in." It took a year and nine months to 
demonstrate that pulp and paper was a little bit different 
from any other business, and if it had not been for the honest 
cooperation and assistance afforded by the appointment of 
competent men, and the open conversation and advice to 
my experts in the work, we should have been able to accom- 
plish no results of any kind whatever. We wanted to start 
with the wood pulp, but they started us in with the coating 
and calendering. It was the least efficient part, but it was 
exceedingly difficult to begin with. We started the planning 
board and making the time-studies almost simultaneously. 
In the operation of calendering, we spent three months and 
a half, following Mr. Taylor's method of time-studies as 
closely as possible, making the rough time-study and the 
analysis of time-studies. The operations in calendering are 
divided into five or six parts — I don't remember exactly 
what — high-speed, low-speed, make-ready, taking samples, 
mending breaks and a certain percentage for delays. We time- 
studied about 500 separate rolls, running through every 
grade and thickness. These data we analyzed, getting about 
1,000 analyses of the time-studies, out of which grew 
schedules upon which we based our standard times, covering 
every grade and weight of paper, particularly book-paper, 
run through that department. We estimated that efficiency 
was about 52 per cent or 53 per cent. Upon the first week's 
operation it came out somewhere in that vicinity, — not 
more than 5 per cent variation, to our surprise. We expected, 
from past experience, that upon the application of bonus to 
those standards the efficiency would immediately come up and 
we would show a radical improvement in efficiency and attend- 
ant savings. Such was not the case. In all my experience 
I have never seen an efficiency curve rise so slowly or so uni- 
formly as in that calendering department, although we offered 
20 per cent bonus, with 1 per cent increase upon that. The 
reason was that they ran a good paper. In changing the 
grades of paper, they happened to run more machines and a 
gradual tendency towards increase of output appeared. 



254 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

We found that the young men, the men who had been in 
the department the shortest time, took hold most rapidly. 
For instance, one man with a few months' experience ran up 
to ioo per cent efficiency almost immediately. Another 
man of two years' experience on an average over six months 
ran around 99 per cent. As soon as the management found 
certain men running at high efficiency and other men lagging 
at 50 per cent, they said, " These men are attaining that high 
per cent at the sacrifice of the paper." So the man in 
charge of the efficiency department made an exhaustive 
and intricate study of the waste problem and its effect 
upon the efficiency, and he proved that the run of lowest 
efficiency was making the most waste, and quite reasonably 
so. The man who would run through the greatest number 
of feet on the rolls wanted the least waste. He wanted the 
least time; he wanted his sheets as clean as possible running 
over those calenders. And in that line we were particularly 
gratified. 

Our work passed into the coating room and back into the 
paper-machines. Then we jumped clear over into the cutting, 
sorting and finishing room. I want to make a final, general 
statement as to our figures. After we had made certain tests 
of various departments, we found we were up against a de- 
pendent sequence of operations. The paper-machines being 
the most costly equipment, the effort to secure efficiency 
was concentrated upon the paper-machines. They had a 
good product, had good discharge, and the percentage of the 
efficiency was high. It was reasonable to think that if 
the coating and calendering department was taking care of 
the paper, it was over-equipped 30 to 40 per cent. That is, 
if we attained to 100 per cent in coating and calendering, we 
would have to do away with 30 or 40 per cent of our equip- 
ment or increase the equipment of the paper-machines, 
and the question came up whether we could sell the paper. 
I saw, too, that if we brought up the efficiency of the coating 
and calendering we should have to increase the capacity of the 
cutting, sorting and finishing departments. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 255 

If I were to go there again, the first step would be con- 
cerned with the organization. I would bring every one, from 
the president of the company down to the last man in the 
laboratory, into the reorganization. The second thing; I 
would attempt to get my material through from the pulp- 
mill at a predetermined efficiency and to move along from 
department to department in such dependent sequence, that 
important changes in requirements of equipment would not 
come suddenly before the management. 

As to particular questions or problems, any one is at 
liberty to ask questions upon points I may have suggested; 
or I should be glad if you would take them up among your- 
selves and discuss them. 

Mr. Wolf: We started in at the Burgess Sulphite Fiber 
plant about five years ago to develop our business along 
scientific fines. At that time we had the reputation of mak- 
ing the worst pulp in the world. From making the worst 
pulp that was made in the world five years ago, we have 
developed a plant making the best. At any rate, we have 
increased the production from an average of 225 tons a day 
at that time to 350 tons, and in so doing we have been 
able to decrease the cost of manufacture. 

We started in to make a pulp equal to the European pulp, 
and in casting around for a reason for the superiority of the 
European pulp, we found that in Europe they were employ- 
ing technical men to solve their problems. Though Scientific 
Management, as we understand it and as we have heard it, 
has not been brought about there, they have studied their 
business from a scientific standpoint. They are employing 
only the best men as their superintendents and foremen. They 
lay particular stress upon technical training, and for that 
reason they have been able to make pulp such as we could 
not make in this country, because we haven't applied to the 
business the technical knowledge available. So we started 
along these fines. We increased our laboratory force from 
one man until we have seven chemists employed at the pres- 
ent time, — I mean seven graduate chemists. We have in 



256 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

addition a lot of men collecting statistics connected with the 
laboratory force, making an organization considerably larger 
than any we know of with other companies. Some of these 
men are employed at investigation work, others are carrying 
out routine. 

We began then to study the problems of management accord- 
ing to our lights. We had no knowledge of Scientific Manage- 
ment, but in a good many instances we were able to set our 
laboratory force investigating things chemical in their nature, 
things that had reference to reduction of labor cost and 
to the efficiency of the plant. We started a system of 
keeping track of the cost of handling raw materials per 
unit. For instance, in one department handling wood we 
have three men, one at each shift, and each of those three 
men keeps a labor slip which shows each day the cost of 
handling. That is put on his time-card the day following 
the day's work. On that card we have also his average for 
the month, as well as the average for each of the other two 
men, and also opposite that the average established on that 
particular grade of work. From that we get the efficiency. 

When Mr. Taylor's and Mr. Emerson's articles first came 
out, we were very much interested. I went down to see Mr. 
Taylor and I got some very interesting points. We realized 
that we had just scratched the surface and that there was 
infinitely more to it. It is my firm conviction that in order 
to bring the paper business to the point of efficiency obtained 
in the old country, — I am speaking from the pulp end, but 
I know more or less about the paper end — we must employ 
technical men. Mr. Everard said that he was very much 
impressed during the trip he made through Germany, Nor- 
way and Sweden, with the fact that the men at the heads 
of the companies were paid very large salaries and that they 
selected the very best type of men they could get. I think 
the mistake is made here generally in not employing mana- 
gers, — in employing superintendents. We hire a man and 
do not hold him responsible. 

Mr. Chipman: Focusing the best technical knowledge 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 257 

upon pulp manufacture is Scientific Management pure and 
simple, and particularly in paper-mills where there are such 
tremendous actions and reactions, — I can't give the chemical 
phraseology, but the effect of the variations of the chemicals 
upon the pulp and paper are so enormous as to far transcend 
the efficiency of a single workman or a whole department. The 
standardizing of them I consider one of the greatest moves 
in the paper industry, and I understand they have traced 
curves at the Berlin mills showing the product for a long period 
of time, which is admirable. 

Mr. Wolf: We have found that this thing pays. We 
have not spent one single dollar that we have not got back in 
less than a month's time, and in other companies they have 
more than paid in less than a year's time. I say this because 
a great many investigations take over a year before one 
can draw conclusions. The thing pays and it pays greatly, 
in proportion to the amount of money invested. You can't 
afford to do without it. 

Mr. Whitney: I should like to ask Mr. Wolf if in their 
scientific department they adopted the bonus system in any 
way. 

Mr. Wolf: We haven't gone into that at all. The piece- 
work system has never been used in the paper-mills, and we 
feel that that is a thing that we should have to go very cau- 
tiously about. Whether it is at all wise to establish a piece- 
work system or not is a question. We do believe that men 
should be compensated for the work that they do, and that it 
pays to employ good men. That is a thing we are studying 
very carefully. It would be most ill-advised to start in and 
upset the rate of wages before you have made careful study 
and taken into consideration the effect it may have upon the 
rest of the plant. The thing never has been done in a paper- 
mill. It is a revolution. The thing has to work in through 
the organization first. Make some changes, get interested 
in it. As Mr. Taylor puts it, collect the primitive knowledge 
the men have first and improve upon it, study and apply 
it. From the inertia and antagonism that exist in a paper- 



258 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

mill towards anything new, we have worked up a spirit of 
cooperation there, so that the men are more disappointed if 
there is any failure than we are. For that reason we are very 
careful not to make any false moves and make sure that we 
are going to make successes. Each success makes the men 
more confident in the management. It gives them a feeling 
of pride in the organization. 

Mr. Whitney: I appreciate the fact that it is a very diffi- 
cult thing to establish a reward or a bonus. At least I haven't 
been able to do it as yet; but so much stress has been laid 
upon that point that I should like to hear, if anybody has 
anything to say on that subject, how one would apply that 
sort of thing to paper-making. 

Mr. Chipman: In the particular plant where we applied 
the bonus to 500 or 600 men, we had no complaint 
between the various departments as to the bonus that was 
earned by any department. We maintained the rate of wages 
current in the mill. That has to be guaranteed under any 
bonus system which is equitable, and upon that we paid a 
bonus in proportion to the efficiency. If the entire average 
of your departments were equal, your rate of wages would be 
the same, but if you should suddenly develop a man at 100 
or 150 per cent beside a man of 40 or 50 per cent, there 
would be considerable variation. Then it becomes a ques- 
tion whether you are putting in a premature bonus or not. 
I am coming more and more to be of the opinion that a bonus 
should be the last thing to be introduced into your plant. 
Your conditions should be standardized, your organization 
perfected, before ever thinking of adopting one cent of bonus. 
I think at a great many plants the bonus has been put in 
before they really had an exact standard, and a higher bonus 
was established than was necessary. 

Mr. Whitney: I should like to make this inquiry in con- 
nection with the statements you have just made: did you in 
the course of your work in that particular mill, establish 
individual efficiency records or did you establish room records, 
or gang records, or establish the unit working hours? 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 259 

Mr. Chepman: The only way we could pay a bonus was 
to get the efficiency on each individual operation. Averages 
mean nothing. You cannot take even pretty stiff averages 
in a paper-mill and pay a bonus. We had the record of each 
individual operation of the work. We maintained the record 
of the efficiency of a particular man on all the grades of paper 
that he ran on a certain machine, totaling the standard time 
he developed and the actual time he consumed, and the ratio 
gave him an average efficiency covering the total period. The 
bonus was paid on that efficiency. We maintained an indi- 
vidual efficiency record for every workman on every machine. 
If the foreman of a department wanted to know what any 
particular man was doing he could turn immediately to the 
records and they would show what that man had done for any 
time, — any day or week, or his average. Those records 
could have been maintained irrespective of any bonus 
system. 

Question: I am not a paper man but I have been through 
a paper-mill, — walked through — and I should like to know 
how it is possible to get individual records in a room such as 
that in which the big paper-machines are, where five or six 
operators are on one machine and no one of them, so far as 
I can see, could be made responsible for any particular product. 

Mr. Chepman: You have stated an exception right off. 
That would be the same as Mr. Taylor's gang system. We 
include that big operation as a whole. It then becomes the 
efficiency of the gang. 

Question: If you should attempt to establish a bonus, it 
would be for gang efficiency? 

Mr. Chipman: Yes. For instance, in gang work — not in 
paper-mill work — a very interesting thing once came up. 
In Pittsburg, on a particularly large contract, we estab- 
lished a certain wage for the gang, not an individual work- 
man's wage. We set $10 a day for the gang; five men 
in the gang, $2 apiece. If four men could do that work 
they would still get the $10, so added to the bonus was the 
impetus for selection among those men and they would want 



260 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

to reduce their crew to the lowest possible number of men. 
The result was that in that particular crew in a large boiler 
shop, in the course of the work they reduced their crews 
from eight to five, turned out the same amount of work 
and got the same wages as the former crew of eight. 

Question: Where did the other men go? 

Mr. Chipman: When you ask me where the other men 
went, you then come to another interesting problem. In one 
plant we were laboring strenuously trying to reduce the pay- 
roll in a certain department. They asked what results we 
were getting and we said, "We have reduced that pay-roll 
20 per cent." The manager said, "I don't see that you 
have, the total pay-roll is just the same." We found the 
fellows who had been removed from the first department 
were in another department. We got them out of there and 
we still found that the pay-roll was not coming down. So we 
went through the whole plant, and we finally found those 
fellows out in the yard doing yard work, and it was not until 
we had absolutely finished the plant and walked out the back 
door that we knew what had become of them. 

Mr. Moore: What would you do if you were in a town 
where the whole population is inefficient. You cannot fire 
your labor. They get their pay and then take two or three 
days off. 

Mr. Chipman: Your question is a very good one. We 
divide plants into two divisions, — one which the efficiency 
engineer or betterment engineer can work upon; the other 
which requires the services of a surgeon. If a man has a 
paper-mill and there is a railroad through the town and a river 
flowing there, if that river suddenly changes its course and 
the railroad ceases to run, I should think the paper-mill in a 
bad state; but it is not a job for the efficiency engineer, it is 
a job for the mover. When it comes to a paper-mill in a 
town where a lot of families are growing up and the manager 
marries the sister of the wife of the mill-owner, or the fore- 
man of the finishing department marries the daughter of the 
superintendent of the stock-room, I should say, handle the 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 261 

Scientific Management step mighty carefully. I have been 
there. 

Mr. Wolf: Have you ever applied any tests to the paper- 
machine end? 

Mr. Chipman: The paper-machine end was taken up by 
the man who superseded me in charge of the department. 
In our opinion he did most admirable work. We found the 
ordinary time-study applied only to the most limited degree. 
It covered practically only the delays in the matter of chang- 
ing the width and putting on a new felt. The repairing and 
new parts of machines we could time-study, but when we 
came to the actual making of the paper, if we were to stand 
with a stop-watch what were we going to write down? So 
the gentleman in charge of that work made a minute study, 
covering a long period of years, of the achievement of the 
paper-machines upon every grade and weight, until he had 
plotted a curve of the achievement of each machine from a 
very low weight to a very heavy weight and he got some 
beautiful curves. It is a matter of long time; it is a matter 
of variations, and the mere matter of a stop-watch time- 
study would be rather futile. 

Mr. Wolf: Have you made time-studies to standardize 
the beaters? 

Mr. Chipman: We never timed them; we didn't like the 
looks of them. The man in charge of the beaters said he 
could reach down into the machine and in that way tell ex- 
actly what its condition was, and after a little investigation I 
found that that was literally true. Mr. Greene had spent a 
number of hours making lantern-slides of various stages of 
the beater work, and after he got through with all that, this 
old fellow could stick his hand down into the machine and tell 
him more about it than all his slides could prove. 

Mr. Wolf: I found the thing worked out very success- 
fully in a mill I was in a few days ago. 

Mr. Chipman: I understand that they have worked it out 
at some plants, but as far as I was concerned I let the beater 
proposition alone. 



262 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Wolf: I will not say where I saw this, but I saw a 
beater-roll which was worked by means of hydraulic pres- 
sure, whereby certain pressure could be put on the bed-plate 
and for certain grades of stock they had an absolute schedule 
of just how many pounds of pressure should be used. They 
had a very good thing. It struck me as about the only 
solution of the beater problem. It will be put on the market 
very shortly. It is working and very successfully. 

Mr. Moore: I do not think there is any business that has 
quite so many variables as the paper business. In the first 
place, you have the variation in the wood, the same kind of 
wood grown in different localities; in the second place, you 
have variation in time of year the wood is cut; third, you have 
variation in the time it is stored before use; fourth, you 
have variation in your chipping, which may be considerable; 
fifth, you have the chemical variations; and those chemical 
variations, which I shall not go into minutely, can be classed 
under the variations of acid, that is to say, the bases, the pro- 
portions of your bases and the kind of bases in use, the 
proportion of your acid radical and, more or less, the kind 
of acid radical; then the cooking, the variations of tempera- 
tures and a whole lot of secondary reactions which take place 
due to the variation in temperatures. In fact, one variable 
affects another variable so much that it is impossible to tell 
where one variable begins and where the other one ends, or 
whether it is due to this variable or to something entirely 
overlooked. Then after that you have several other variables, 
such as the effect of washing with hot or cold water and 
different things of that sort. I might go right through the 
whole list, even down to drying. You say, " There is no 
variation in drying," but as a matter of fact you are changing 
a certain amount of pulp into sugar, and from the start to 
the finish in making a pulp you have chemical variations that 
can be told only by the result of the tests. You see the 
finished product, but you don't see the process as you do in a 
lathe. There is no chance for chemical measurement of the 
variables. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 263 

Mr. Wolf: I have every confidence that if the paper 
and pulp manufacturers of this country should apply the 
technical knowledge we have, we should beat the world. I 
think that applies to any industry. I don't think that is 
" spread-eagleism." 

Mr. Mulliken: Going back to the original speech of 
Mr. Wolf, in which he told what good work the Burgess 
Sulphite Fiber Company has done, I should like to ask Mr. 
Wolf about the time-studies which increased the output of 
his mill from 225 to 350 tons. Is that right? 

Mr. Wolf: I want to correct that impression. That was 
not due to time-studies, but wholly to the quality of the pulp 
which the paper-makers were using. 

Mr. Mulliken: I will vary my question a little bit. You 
did get some increase from time-studies? 

Mr. Wolf: Oh, yes; we did. 

Mr. Mulliken : Were the men rewarded in any way? 

Mr. Wolf: I think I answered that question originally. 
We have made no change in our method of paying the men. 

Mr. Mulliken: And they were quite willing to abide by 
the time-studies? 

Mr. Wolf: The men did not know any time-studies were 
being made. We made them in such a way that they didn't 
know anything about it. 

Mr. Mulliken: Do you know any paper-mill that has 
adopted Scientific Management? 

Mr. Wolf: I know one paper-mill that is now in process 
of adopting it. I am not at liberty to name the mill, but it is 
under Mr. Taylor's management. I talked with the manager 
and he is very enthusiastic and sees possibilities that he had 
never dreamed of. 

Question: Can you tell us what grades of paper they make? 

Mr. Wolf: Book paper, fine paper. 

Question: Coated? 

Mr. Wolf: Yes. Don't ask any further questions for I 
can't say any more. They make very fine papers, I will say 
that. 



264 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Whitney: Would not your judgment be, Mr. Wolf, 
that the only really good way to introduce Scientific Manage- 
ment is to get a very competent man who has been through 
that sort of thing in some other industry, who could bring to 
that business the knowledge he has gained through other 
business in that work, rather than to get the man who is 
trying to manage the men and do it himself? 

Mr. Wolf: I think that is a very desirable thing to do, 
to get a good man to come in and start you right. 

Mr. Whitney: It seems to me that going wrong at the 
very start would be fatal to success. 

Mr. Wolf: Yes. We started using cooking records. We 
plotted graphically the process of cooking and plotted the 
gas pressure, which is the pressure computed from the tem- 
perature. We subtract the gas pressure from what we call 
the steam pressure and obtain the actual pressure. If that 
drops too rapidly, it shows the digester is being relieved too 
hard. We started in to use those records and we almost had 
a strike. The men would not use them ; they said they could 
not be taught to see with a lead pencil, but they finally took 
it on trial. By handling them very carefully and getting 
their good will, they fell in with the idea, and you could not 
take it away from them today. I was showing one of our 
men these cooking records and I said, "I am going to show 
you something," and I hauled out some old mill records. He 
said, "Did we ever cook like that?" I said, "You certainly 
did." He said, "It makes a fellow feel the same as looking at 
a picture of himself when he was drunk, after he had sobered 
up." That was the change in their attitude towards these 
things. Our men will now take anything of that kind. It 
had taken five years to bring that about, and we have had to 
go at it very carefully and cautiously and we sometimes got 
near the danger line. Nov/ there is no danger at all. We can 
try any innovation we want. 

Mr. Moore: The charting of your results in a paper-mill 
is about the only method I know of arriving at what you are 
doing. The first time that struck me was in the year 1899. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 265 

Mr. Barton, head of our chemical-mill (I helped him, but I 
think his was the original idea) , charted some efficiency curves, 
showing what governed the efficiency of service. We dis- 
covered a very remarkable law — what the law is I am not 
stating at this meeting. Suffice to say, that mill has been 
running according to that law ever since. The only way the 
effect of one variable upon another can be shown is to draw 
some major line and the effect of these variables upon this 
major line must be charted. You can plot results and work 
backwards so as to see what is happening, and that is the 
only way you can work in the paper industry, where you have 
such complex problems. 

Mr. Whitney: I had an interesting experience in con- 
nection with our ground-wood mill. It is a very small mill. 
The power from year to year is quite variable, depending upon 
meteorological conditions. We found that when the power 
was less we were making proportionately more pulp. That 
was done simply by a curve; we plotted the results of what 
we should get under the power, assuming certain conditions, 
and then we plotted what we did get. These two curves 
were very close together at the lower extremity where the 
power was less, and as we went up nearer the full capacity 
of the mill the actual production fell off very materially from 
the theoretical curve. Then the thing to do was to look 
about and see what the difficulty was. This brought out 
the fact in our case that when we were suffering from low 
water we were grinding at very low pressure and reasonably 
sharp stone, as sharp as we could get without making inferior 
pulp. Then we set about to keep these conditions uniform 
through any amount of power we might be having up to the 
capacity of the mill. Instead of changing the pressure on 
one grinder as the amount of power increased, we simply put 
on another grinder; not increasing the pressure any more, 
but keeping that constant and increasing the amount of wood 
put on the stone. Unfortunately, after adopting the system 
there has been no increase in the power itself. For three 
years we have had very low water so we haven't been able to 



266 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

see how our actual production curve compares with the 
theoretical one, but as far as we have data, it looks as if the 
two would coincide. It shows the value of putting these 
things into graphic form, for that point might be easily 
overlooked in a mass of figures. 

Mr. Wolf: Did you determine the best pressure per 
square inch? 

Mr. Whitney: No, we haven't got so far as that, but we 
determined that on our sixteen-inch rolls a pressure of twenty- 
five pounds per square inch was ample. 

Mr. Wolf: I mean on the surface of wood exposed? 

Mr. Whitney: That of course would have to be multi- 
plied by the power per cylinder and divided by the square 
inches of the stone. I haven't done that. 

Mr. Moore: The graphic methods are the only methods 
you can use with any degree of success in showing results, in a 
paper-mill especially; and it would pay any mill to put in a 
room for the purpose of taking the information and plotting 
it graphically and handling the statistics. 

Mr Whitney: I am doing that as fast as I can. 

Mr. Moore: In the graphic system you stumble onto 
laws that you didn't think existed. That is very interesting. 

Question: Mr. Wolf, what experience have you had along 
the line of handling materials, storage of pulp and paper? 

Mr. Wolf: You mean in the storehouse? We have had 
so many other things we have neglected it. We are starting 
now to put in a thorough system of storehouse operation. I 
have been through the Watertown Arsenal and the Tabor 
shops and one other place where I have seen it in operation. 
It is a splendid thing. It enables you to reduce your stock 
on hand to the minimum and never be in danger of running 
out. 

Question: I should think it would be one of your biggest 
auxiliaries, you have such a large plant. 

Mr. Wolf: Our main supply is wood. We keep any- 
where from $500,000 to $1,000,000 worth of wood on hand. 
We have usually not far from $750,000 worth in the Burgess 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 267 

mill alone. That of course you cannot regulate by any par- 
ticular system. You have to govern yourself by the market 
conditions; you must buy when you can and store it. We 
carry about $190,000 worth of mill supplies and, of course, 
as the mill is large and doing a good deal of work, we need 
a large supply, but this is too large, and we figure that we 
can cut it down a great deal. I don't see a single thing 
about the paper business, even down to the operation of the 
machines, that can't be worked out on an absolutely scien- 
tific basis. We have standardized things that we had no 
conception when we started we could standardize, any more 
than we could standardize the blacking of a pair of shoes, 
yet we have succeeded and are getting surprising results. 
I don't think these paper problems can resist the pressure 
brought to bear upon them any more than any other 
business can. 

Mr. Whitney: I think you strike very much greater prej- 
udices in the paper industry. I don't know of any more 
prejudiced people than those in the paper-mills. 

Mr. Wolf: Absolutely the worst. I don't mean to hurt 
any one's feelings. I mean the old fellow who has worked 
along in the old way. When I started in to learn the business, 
I had to keep almighty quiet the fact that I was a college 
man. The idea of a college man wanting to learn the paper 
business was preposterous to them. 

Mr. Lincoln: I think the problem the paper men are 
coming to find, is not so much the making of paper as the 
maintenance of machines, keeping them in condition and 
having them work perfectly, and not having them run with 
a little jerk here and a jump there. When you go down the 
line you find perhaps a machine is bucking and things of that 
sort, yet you wonder why the paper doesn't come uniform. 
You go into the grinder-room and you find they have the roll 
lower on one side than on the other, and you expect the men 
to make a fine roll of paper. The difficulty is with the organi- 
zation, in not looking after things of that sort, in allowing 
them to occur. 



268 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Whitney: So many things can happen. I remember 
our mill was making "broken" fir three days and we could not 
discover the cause. Somebody was bright enough to chart the 
clutch, — an old-fashioned cup clutch. He drew a line across 
the two parts of the clutch and after a while, — after the next 
break — looked at the chart line and found that had pulled off, 
showing that it had been slipping. Just that had made all 
the difference. We had lost practically the whole product for 
two or three days because that clutch was slipping. 

Mr. Lincoln : I should like to inquire whether the gentle- 
man who asked about stores has any information to give us. 

Mr. Camp: I haven't; I was trying to find out what the 
other fellow knew. 

Mr. Wolf: The best places to get that are the Water- 
town Arsenal or the Tabor Manufacturing Company of 
Philadelphia. At both of these places the management will 
be glad to show you what they have. 

Mr. Moore : I have been to both. They are very similar. 
Watertown is the newest and the letters on the storeroom 
are more suggestive of the article you wish to find. 

Mr. Camp: I have only one question, — about the double- 
bin system. At Watertown they went into it very liberally. 
There they are free from competition and they have the 
double-bin arrangement, taking a great deal of space which 
in some manufacturing plants is expensive. 

Mr. Wole: In order to give the Government certain 
information they want, they have to put in a lot of unnec- 
essary stuff that would not ordinarily enter into the case. 
You will see a more simplified system at the Tabor shops. 

Mr. Moore: In keeping supplies of such petty fittings as 
elbows, tees, screws and everything of that kind, — things 
that are used in large quantities, — you can't know, if they 
are in one large box, how many you have. You are using a 
thousand quarter-inch bits a day; you are not buying those 
every day, and if you have the double-bin arrangement it is 
a warning when you have used one that the storekeeper should 
get busy and order some more. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 269 



VI. LUMBERING AND THE MANAGEMENT OF 
TIMBER PROPERTIES 

Leader, W. R. BROWN 
Berlin Mills Co., Berlin, N. E. 

MR. BROWN: I think it is safe to say that we are 
here primarily for the purpose of gathering new 
ideas for securing an immediate or ultimate 
economy in our line of business. With this in view it gives 
me pleasure to present to you a partial scheme of manage- 
ment we have worked out, which, though far from complete, 
may suggest some new ideas to you in your several lines. 

I will take up forestry first, it being both an integral part 
of a properly conducted industry and of importance also to 
the larger interests of state and country. 

Given a tract of untouched timber-land to start with, the 
first duty is to secure an expert and determine its condition 
as to growth and value and prearrange a plan for its care, in 
order that the owner, either private or public, may reap the 
greatest benefit therefrom. The forester will explore it to 
report on the kind and amount of lumber, its condition of 
growth, what shall be taken, what left, etc. He will survey 
and map it carefully to present this information in a concise 
way, usually by means of contour-line maps, painted or ruled to 
show species. He will make a plan to protect the land in the 
future from decay and wind-throw by judicious cuttings ; from 
insect depredations; and from fire risk by the establishment 
of watchmen on the tops of mountains, the use of patrols, the 
building of trails and telephones, installing fire-fighting appa- 
ratus at needed points ; and in a broader way by cooperating 
with his neighbors and the state along these lines. 

I will say that within the last year the timber-land owners 
of New Hampshire have cooperated with the state both in a 
financial way and in the way of putting on men, and that we 
now also have the cooperation of the Federal government, 



270 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

and the system is worked out in the best possible way for 
all people concerned. 

The forester will finally determine the rate of growth 
which may be gained by judicious planting or cutting, to- 
gether with the acreage, and report on the continuous supply 
of timber which may be expected from the area, to help run 
the industry and to serve the state. 

After the forester comes the forest engineer, who works 
out the cheapest and most efficient manner of building roads, 
cutting timber, driving streams, railroading, and using modern 
instruments such as steam, dynamite, and telephones. As an 
instance of this, I cite the improved driving of streams, which 
used to be done in a more or less haphazard manner. 

Then comes the district manager, who creates a staff of 
helpers to carry out the work; he contracts part of it to 
jobbers, purchases or sells, audits reports and accounting, 
and is the head of the operating. 

He calls to his assistance in the staff an inspector, who saves 
waste in cutting, and reports weekly on special blanks; a 
head scaler, who corrects mistakes in scaling and marking; 
a telephone man to keep up the means of communication; a 
cost accountant, who saves waste by installing a minute but 
simple set of camp and storehouse books, and figures out and 
returns prompt and reliable data on every operation. I have 
here a camp book and some other data which it might be 
interesting for you to examine after the meeting. He em- 
ploys a machinery expert who sets up and looks after the 
logging engines, the steam towboats and log haulers; a 
traffic manager, who prearranges for the securing of good car 
service from the railroads; a purchasing agent, who saves by 
combining orders, watching markets, and obtaining discounts; 
a veterinary, who saves by taking charge of the horses; and 
a statistician, who gathers and tabulates information in a 
logical way for guidance in the future. 

Each of these concentrates on some detail and in the end 
saves more than his cost, and all by cooperation form an 
effective working body. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 271 

In the direction and organization of this staff, I wish to 
present to you a system as shown by this chart which we have 
worked out on the side of the management wholly. The 
labor side of Scientific Management which calls for task-setting 
and a bonus we have not taken up as yet, because we are 
uncertain about its advantages. Whether there is any 
analogy between the shop and the camp in the woods is a 
question. Whether the elements of routine, immobility, con- 
tinuity of service and steadiness of life which characterize 
the shop man and enable the shop manager to train him to a 
fine point, are not all lacking in the timber jack, is a question. 
The jack is constantly meeting emergencies, is isolated and 
therefore hard to watch or guide, is dependent in his work on 
weather conditions and is commonly a floating, irresponsible 
character. In a certain way, we approximate the bonus 
system by determining the amount of pay at the close of a 
season, or operation, by the individual ability and energy 
shown by each man, as it appears to the boss; and the boss, 
in turn, is rewarded by the district manager. For this reason, 
they are not so likely to go slow. I doubt whether it is always 
best to set wages by the result of processes, or whether tangible 
results always represent the true value received from service. 
The human and psychological side often plays strange pranks 
with logic, and justice should be tempered with mercy. 

This chart for organizing and instructing the staff is based 
on three lines of thought, which follow each other in natural 
sequence in considering any enterprise: 

First, forming a plan of what is to be done. 

Second, keeping the records of the carrying out of that 
plan. 

Third, keeping the experience and data gathered from it. 
These, with imagination, usually lead to the forming of 
another plan. 

We have called these the Budget, the Accounting and 
the Statistic. A book is kept for each which contains a 
skeleton outline of the data in every department and every 
operation, for the advice and guidance of the general manager 



272 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

and those of his staff who are particularly interested in 
any department or operation. The staff consists of district 
managers, accountants, forester, inspectors, scalers, engi- 
neers, electricians, traffic manager, purchasing agents, and 
statisticians. 

The first of the three books is the Budget. It is routed 
down through the staff at certain times and seasons for their 
suggestions thereon, and should tend to a consensus of judg- 
ment of all those particularly interested in work which is to 
be undertaken. The second, the Accounting book, and the 
third, the Statistic book, are kept in the general office, and 
necessary reports and extracts from them are sent out to the 
members of the staff by the statistician, whenever needed. 

The object of the Budget is to reduce loose plans or opinions 
to a scientific basis, and will result in saving due to the adjust- 
ments perfected between different parts of the business; the 
drawing together of the staff in united effort, creating esprit 
de corps. 

The accounting system should gather absolutely accurate, 
far-reaching and prompt reports, so that the general man- 
ager can have at least once a month the cost of every detail, 
however small. 

Statistics should be gathered at all times, and all reports 
and records should be filed away and condensed so as to be 
easy of access. 

In working out a skeleton plan of departments and corpora- 
tions under three heads, we have separated for convenience 
different districts, and under each district we have divided 
the work into logging, driving, and the purchase of wood. 
Under logging, after making out a general plan, we have 
specifically named forestry, which divides itself into the cutting 
method to be pursued; inspection of cutting and scale; pro- 
tection of woodland from fire; wind throw or insect kill; 
estimating; surveying and mapping. Also under logging we 
have named the establishment of storehouses; the establish- 
ment of camps — both company and jobbers' ; the building 
of railroads and their operation; the purchase and care of 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 273 

horses; construction of telephone lines; insurance of buildings 
and other property; the sale of stumpage; rents and leases, 
and carrying on of farms and payment of taxes. 

Under driving, after making out a general plan, we have 
named specific drives; storehouses as serving drives; the 
carrying on of driving corporations; the making of stream 
improvements; the engineering problems concerning tow- 
boats and launches. 

Under the purchase of wood, after making out a general 
plan, we have specified the requirements of mills; the sources 
of railroad supply; instructions to purchasing agents; traffic 
requirements; the handling of plants required; and offices 
maintained. 

A general formula carries suggestions for answers under all 
of the headings above in every budget as to, first, place; 
second, time; third, amount and kind; fourth, labor; fifth, 
equipment; sixth, measurement; seventh, conditions; eighth, 
price and payment; ninth, accessories; tenth, accounting 
and costs. By changing these a little to suit the different 
kinds of business, they seem to cover the ground and give 
the suggestions which will allow the particular staff officer 
to answer questions in his department. 

In the accounting division complete records are kept to 
correspond with the various operations named above, simple 
as possible for the man in the field, and in the nature of 
records to be sent to the main office to be combined into a 
double-entry system. 

In the statistical division data are collected as fast as 
possible under the heads of the operations named. 

The above general plan has been made to suit the par- 
ticular needs of our business, and should be modified and 
added to in many ways to meet other conditions. We are 
glad to present for your consideration any suggestions it 
may contain. 

I will call on Mr. Witherell, who has been in Scientific 
Management work in the South, to tell us a little of his 
experience there. 



274 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Mr. Witherell: As far as I know I am one of the first 
men, with training along what might be called industrial 
engineering lines, to go into the lumber business. Although 
I came from Massachusetts, almost all of my work has 
been in the southern states, in connection with several of 
the larger operations in the long-leaf yellow pine district. 
I have not taken up to any great extent the accounting end 
of the woods and mill operations. 

One of the larger plants, at which I stayed for some time, 
worked twelve months in the year, as is the custom in the 
South, keeping the woods and mill operations going simul- 
taneously. In fact, everybody in that region felt that it was 
a crime to shut a mill down for even fifteen minutes, and I 
believe this mill had not shut down more than a day in three 
or four years. 

I took up the problems of improving the efficiency of the 
woods operations along the following lines: sawing, skidding, 
track-laying, grading and transportation to the mill. 

When I came to this plant, I found, somewhat to my sur- 
prise, that three-fourths of the men were negroes. Very few 
whites in the South are efficient as working-men, except pos- 
sibly as sawyers. However, the negroes make good workmen 
when well trained. 

I found that most of the trees were cut off so that the 
stumps were from twenty to thirty-six inches above the 
ground. The men were paid on the piece-rate basis, thirty- 
five cents per M, and would not cut any lower, as a general 
average, than between twenty to thirty-six inches above the 
ground. We noticed that 75 per cent of the stumps, which 
had an average diameter of twenty inches, were almost a 
clear sap grade, which would sell in foreign markets for 
from $25 to $40 per M. Such a stump is full of pitch 
and is very hard to cut down, due to the gumming of the 
saw. We tried various experiments, using a stop-watch to 
find out how long it took to cut down respectively a long- 
leaf and a short-leaf pine tree. We found that by leaving 
a ten-inch or twelve-inch stump, we could get about 80 per 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 275 

cent as much work out of the men as by leaving a thirty-inch 
stump. 

In order to make it worth while for the men, we raised the 
price to forty-five cents per M, and required them to leave 
an average stump height of not more than ten inches. We 
had about fifty crews of men, the average crew not working 
more than seven hours a day. Occasionally the men would 
work eight hours, but usually six or seven hours of hard 
work would use up a man's energy, and the men would rest 
the remainder of the time. We found that the men could not 
do more work, but that they would cut the trees lower if we 
compensated them for it. We took an additional cent per 
M, and made it into premiums, giving a premium of $25 
per month to the best crew, to the next $20 per month, to 
the next best $10, the next $5; that is, the men leaving the 
lowest stumps, the men who were really doing the best work 
for the company, received the premiums. The best crews 
averaged between fifty and fifty-five cents per M, the pre- 
miums actually making a difference of from twelve to fifteen 
cents per M. Meanwhile, the company was getting from 
one to two feet of the tree that could be cut up and sold 
for $30 to $35 per M. I do not remember just now how 
much the company got out of it, but I think the ratio was 
about two or three to one, and everybody was satisfied. 
Much to my surprise, some of the best men tried to cut trees 
a few inches from the ground, because they were so anxious 
to receive that additional $25 per month. We usually found 
that the whites were better sawyers than the negroes. In this 
plant the company furnished two and four-cutter saws, and 
we obtained very good results. 

With regard to skidding, the company, only about a year 
before I came, used the old methods, that is, drawing the 
logs to the track by oxen and mules. Shortly before I came 
they bought a skidder, something like a Clyde, but even more 
effective. There were two separate cars; the front car being 
an "A" frame with four pulleys on the top. As soon as 
this car was set up, it was braced at four points with ropes 



276 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

which were carried out about 200 to 300 feet and fastened 
to stumps or trees. On another car were two double-drum 
hoisting engines, each about 40 horse-power, and a 100 horse- 
power boiler. Behind this car was the fuel car with wood 
and water. This expensive layout, costing about $10,000, 
required a fireman, tallyman, water-boy, four engineers and 
four crews. There were four steel ropes, each covering a 
separate area and needing three men to operate. This 
machine was quite efficient, and would rapidly handle the 
logs near the track. The maximum rate of speed of the ma- 
chine for short intervals was between 2,000 and 3,000 logs per 
week, and was obtained by getting the men to work together 
and not waste time. In bad country, the skidder would 
often not get in more than 1 ,000 logs a week. 

Question: Did you have to build a railroad? 

Mr. Witherell: It was not much of a railroad, just 
enough so that the cars would stay on the track. We laid 
out the tracks from 1,000 to 2,000 feet apart; we tried to 
keep the skidding distance not more than 600 feet. 

We studied the skidder pretty carefully, and determined 
that if the men were properly trained they ought to be able 
to raise the average rate from 500 to 750 logs per day. We 
called 750 logs per day 100 per cent efficiency; and the whole 
skidder crew would get no bonus at 550 and at half-way, or 
625 logs per day, a bonus of 10 per cent. The great losses 
of time seemed to be in the lack of coordination. The men 
putting the chain or hooks on the log would not be careful 
in their work and the chain might slip off, or they might put 
the cable at about the center of a log (causing a tie-up 
among trees). The boy driving the mule very often would 
waste 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the time. He might be 
off the mule and not attending to business. We made the 
mule-boys try to keep not more than 100 feet away from the 
log and try to get to the skidder as soon as the men took 
the chain off the log. Then the mule would be ready to take 
the clamps and rope back. We found it very easy, by watch- 
ing various movements and timing them, to save from 20 per 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 277 

cent to 30 per cent of the time right at the start. As I 
remember, gang on line one was against gang on line two, 
and gang on three against gang on four. We divided up $5 
a week to the gang of three men which had done the best 
work; not on a weekly basis, but on a monthly basis, thus 
making it worth while for the men to keep at work steadily 
in order to regularly receive the extra compensation. 

Later on, we found that these large machines were quite 
expensive and were exceedingly hard to move. They were 
not economical with a twenty-man crew when we got into a 
swamp. So a small skidder on skids was constructed that 
could be used in swampy country. We could take the whole 
machine — consisting of a boiler and two line drums — load 
it on a flat car, skid it to the ground and place it by mules 
where we desired. In some parts of the country wheels 
were not of any value, any more than in the swamps of Louisi- 
ana and Mississippi, where most of the country is under water 
a good part of the year. 

In taking up the loading we had another interesting prob- 
lem. The men who did this work were very different in 
temperament and ability. The man in charge of the loader 
seemed to have the hardest work in the woods operation. In 
handling his loading machine, the loader would have under 
him a top loader on the car, another man hooking the logs, 
and the engineer and fireman on the locomotive. The 
average log car held about twenty logs. The usual scheme 
of operating had been to let the boss loader load a certain 
number of cars a day. After study we decided, however, 
that something could be saved on this operation. When one 
of the loaders left the company's employ, we started out with 
the other two loading crews. We told them that a loading 
crew cost $10 a day. We said, "If the two crews can do as 
much as three by attending to business, we will split up 
between the two $5 a day." On some days we had to get 
out the third loader, and load a few cars back in the woods, 
but the woods operations got on pretty well with two loaders 
working about twenty days in the month. 



278 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Next we took up track building. We had with us a man 
who had been with the Southern Railway for years, and his 
rail-laying average had been about six rails per man per day 
with a twenty-man crew and a train. Six rails per man was 
the past year's record. We studied his work very carefully 
and were surprised to find out how much time he lost. He 
would frequently lose anywhere from thirty seconds to a 
minute per rail by not having the rail car in shape. Eight 
men laid four rails, then six spiked down while the rest of the 
crew were carrying the ties forward. We had a man stay 
at the rail car who had nothing to do but get the rails ready. 
It saved regularly about thirty seconds to a rail. The form 
of procedure was to put down about five rails, the men walk- 
ing back and forth five times, and then spike down. We could 
not improve this operation very much, but we did get the 
men in the habit of taking a rail off the car, dropping it and 
coming right back. In putting the rail in place, we often 
found we lost thirty seconds to a minute on account of tight 
bolts. Once in a while the rail would slip in all right; if it 
didn't there was a minute's delay. We overcame this trouble 
by loosening the bolts before the rails were slid in place. We 
also found we lost time on the ties in laying on the grade; 
also in keeping the men driving spikes up to maximum effi- 
ciency. We actually increased the output from six to about 
eleven rails per man per day in about three weeks. Later 
a better rail car was designed. As soon as it gets in service, 
I expect them to come up to about twelve rails per man per 
day. Though the men did not work as hard as before, the 
work went along nearly twice as fast. We gave the men a 
bonus of 20 per cent if they got up to ten and a half rails 
per man per day, and nothing at about seven. The fore- 
man was so interested that he bought a stop-watch, and 
watched his crew closely; so far as I know, he has been able 
to keep up this rate. We have increased in about the same 
proportion the taking up of track, taking up about eleven 
rails per man per day by close organization and cooperation. 

In the transportation of logs to the mill the crews were 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 279 

working pretty efficiently and we did not put them on the 
bonus. As soon as we got the logs into the mill they were 
taken up to the saws. One of the first points we noticed was 
that the saws were changed twice a day, each saw running 
five hours. We had them changed five times a day and got 
much better results. The sawyers were working very effi- 
ciently in that plant, and we were afraid if we put them on a 
bonus they would try to speed up and lower the quality of 
the lumber; so we did not give them a bonus but raised their 
wages slightly to compensate. 

I found about twenty-five or thirty men, as I remember, 
on the sorting platform, sorting into fifteen or twenty grades. 
More than half of these grades went to foreign ports. The 
men sorting were very inefficient, and we found that we 
could cut them down to about eighteen. By paying them a 
slight bonus we got pretty good results. 

The transportation problem was not a very bad one, but 
they had a flexible system, with two-wheel bogies, which 
could not be greatly improved. We found that they worked 
the horses and mules about to the limit. We found also that 
they loaded with about 200 to 400 feet, while some of the 
bogies had a capacity of about 1,000 feet. At any rate, we 
loaded the bogies up to about what they could stand and 
we were obliged, as I remember, to dispense with something 
like one-third of our teams. 

In carrying the lumber to the kilns we had six kilns and 
five crews. As I remember, the cars going through the kilns 
carried about 4,000 feet. The men had their schedule of 
some six cars a day. We put them on a rate of eight with 
a bonus of 20 per cent. They came up to this rate and 
one crew was laid off. 

We tried the same thing in unloading the kiln cars and 
found it worked well. The men were not working anywhere 
near to their full efficiency, and if they wanted to take a few 
hours off they would hustle. The average rate was about 
six cars per two-man crew per day. We made a standard 
of about nine cars with a 20 per cent bonus, and the men 



280 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

got after it. It may surprise you to know that negroes will 
go after a bonus. Most of these men of whom I am speaking 
are white; they worked more intelligently than negroes. 

In the planing-mill we found a good many machines of the 
older types. A good many were running at the rate of 50, 
75 and 100 feet per minute. We found the slow rate at 
which the material went through the planers was due to 
the way the men were running the machines. We increased 
our machines up to all they could stand, and that company 
will put in new machines which will run at the rate of 175 
feet per minute. 

In the loading of the cars for final shipment, we found that 
the men worked in the same way they worked in the other 
departments, that is, only about half a day, at a slow rate. 
I do not remember now about the average rate, but we 
increased it about 40 per cent, and gave the men about 
20 per cent more money as a bonus. 

There was a saving in the cost of operations all along the 
line, a few cents in each operation; and, as I remember, the 
total saving amounted to something like fifty cents per M. 
in the woods and mill. This is not a large amount, but 
the plant is probably one of the best-operated properties in 
the South. The plant was not what would be termed 
modern, but was making money and had a regular output. 

Mr. Brown: We have with us Mr. Bryant, who has 
charge of the Lumbering Department at Yale, and I think we 
should all be very glad if he would talk to us for a few minutes. 

Mr. Bryant: I came to learn something and not to talk. 
In fact, I don't know so much about your eastern plants as I 
do about the southern. Mr. Witherell's talk was very inter- 
esting to me. It seems to me that where an improvement 
can be made in our logging operations, very frequently is in 
planning operations ahead. In some parts of the South, 
especially in the rough regions, it would be well if the 
manager would have a topographical map of his property 
to show what most of his woodsmen have ahead of them. 
When these men leave you, you have nothing to say to them 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 281 

afterwards, and sometimes they have several years' work to 
do. The railroads in their operations lay out their work in 
advance, and I think it applicable to all kinds of business. 
Because the people in the South do so much logging, it is 
necessary to develop their roads; the heavy logging teams 
tear up the roads unless they have been laid out in a proper 
manner. 

There is also another thing in which improvement could 
be made. When you are making a topographical map, you 
could check up and figure out the best scheme of working in 
that part of the country. 

In connection with sawing, it seems the way to handle 
sawyers in the mill is to pay them on both quality and quan- 
tity of lumber produced. In other words, pay the sawyer, 
the edger and the trimmer by the piece. Put a premium on 
high-grade work; give them a small price for producing a 
low grade. The edger and trimmer should not keep track 
of what they do themselves. Have some one on each side of 
the mill to tally up what the others do. I know in one case 
they increased the quality of their labor 10 per cent, and 
everybody was satisfied, — better pleased than they were 
before. The sawyers were afraid of it in the first place, but 
it worked out. Some days they lose and some days they 
make money, but the average is better. The double standard 
kept every man in the mill on the jump. The company figures 
they average 10 per cent more out of it. They seldom push 
their men and the sawyers are better satisfied. 

Question: I should like to ask if any one here has 
taken up the question of rations for animals in logging 
camps. I should like to hear what different people feed, — 
the different rations. 

Answer: I understand that molasses mixed in the grain 
is very effective, and we get a wheat that costs a little less 
than other grain, which is much used in the South. 

Mr. Brown: We found that a great many of our horses 
had been overfed. We wanted to do the best for our horses 
and put more grain into the bin than was necessary, so a 



282 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

good many of them died; we afterwards got a few feeders, 
men whose special duty it was to feed a large number of horses 
and take care of them at the same time, and in that way 
increased the worth and health of the horses. A veterinary 
goes about attending the horses in the forest camps. 

Question: How small a number of horses does it require 
a feeder for? 

Answer: Thirty up. 

Question: Not worth while with less than thirty? 

Answer: No. 

Mr. Brown: We should like to hear from Mr. George A. 
Chedel, Superintendent of the Connecticut River Division of 
the Champlain Realty Company. 

Mr. Chedel: I can tell you about the system used by 
the International Paper Company, through its subsidiary and 
operating companies, in the lumbering operations. 

In the management of lumbering operations, it is neces- 
sary to have an organization, in order that every care may be 
taken first of all to conserve the timber-lands themselves, 
that timber may be growing on the lands after the larger 
growth has been taken off, and to make it a profitable invest- 
ment. In our system of management of lumbering operations, 
we first of all make a suitable main road onto the land which 
is to be operated. Only such timber should be used in the 
construction of roads and bridges as is of little value for 
lumber. After suitable roads are constructed, a camp and 
barn are necessary. A camp sufficient to accomodate forty 
men and a barn which will accomodate twelve horses are 
the thing. 

Trees which are to be cut should be marked so that only 
such trees may be cut as, judging from their age, size and 
general appearance, have reached their growth. Usually, a 
twelve-inch diameter limit, two feet from the ground, is con- 
sidered the right size, and anything under is to be left standing, 
unless it is an exposed location where there is a solid growth. 
It is then sometimes best to cut the entire growth, because 
if part of the growth is cut the remainder very frequently 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 283 

blows down. When this is done it is practical, in a year or 
two after the timber has all been cut, to replant the land 
with nursery-grown stock, in either pine or spruce. Moun- 
tainous land, as a rule, produces spruce better than pine. 
Land that has produced spruce, if necessary to be replanted, 
should be planted in spruce. Norway Spruce under these 
conditions should be planted on account of its faster growth 
than the Red Spruce which grows naturally in this country. 

After the timber has been cut and yarded, it is necessary 
to haul it to the mill or river bank in the cheapest possible 
way. This may be done in two ways. By two or four 
horses in a team, on two sleds, or, if the haul is a long one and 
the grade heavy, it may be desirable to use a traction engine, 
a very practical way where large quantities of logs are to be 
hauled over one road for a long distance. About the same 
kind of road has to be built for a traction engine as for a 
road operated by team. In all work in cutting and hauling 
to the mill or stream, great care must be used in looking after 
details, and no logs should be left in the woods which can 
possibly be used for pulp or lumber. Logs should be cut into 
the tops to a diameter of five inches in spruce, pine or hem- 
lock. This size log can be used at the present time for either 
pulp-wood or lumber. 

In this way there is less waste left on the ground and much 
less danger from fire. Where timber is of mixed growth and 
the cutting is only spruce and hemlock, and hardwood is left 
to protect the remaining growth, it is usually the best way 
to cut logs either twelve, fourteen or sixteen feet in length. 
Logs of this length can be hauled out onto the road with less 
damage to the remaining growth than timber cut in longer 
lengths. Where the cutting is done for mill purposes, it is 
frequently necessary to cut the timber around forty to fifty 
feet long. Where such cutting is done they practically take 
the entire growth, and the land after such operating is of 
very little value, for growth, for a long term of years. In our 
own cuttings, our logs are cut in short lengths to preserve 
remaining growth. 



284 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

In each camp is a foreman, and usually in a camp of forty 
to fifty men, a clerk, who keeps the time of the men and 
does any necessary errands outside. The men are all hired 
by the foreman in charge of each camp and are graded, in 
wages, according to their capacity and skill in their work. 
The food supply for the camps is an important part, and 
care must be exercised that food of good quality shall be 
furnished in order to keep the men contented and satisfied; 
a satisfied stomach is just as necessary in the lumber camp 
as in the home. That the men may have suitable care 
in sickness, it is frequently desirable to have them cared for 
by some hospital. Under these conditions, when men are 
sick, they can have proper care. In a lumber camp it is 
almost impossible to take care of men who are sick, and, if 
it is attempted, it usually results in a large number of the 
men leaving. So we find that much the best way is to take 
them away to a hospital where they can be cared for. 

The methods used by the larger companies in getting their 
logs to destination, whether by driving them in the streams 
or by a railroad, are practically the same. If they are driven, 
it means that the logs must be driven when the snow is melt- 
ing in the early spring, when there is a large flow of water, 
and this means long days and rugged work while the work is 
being done. In this kind of work the men work fourteen 
hours, have four meals per day and are paid from $2 to 
$3 per day and boarded, according to their ability and skill 
in the work. If the delivery to destination is to be made 
by a logging railroad it is practical to haul the logs during 
the summer months, if the danger from setting fire to the 
forests can be eliminated in the dry season. The only safe 
way to do this is to maintain an effective patrol. 

In accounting for the average operation, I should say the fol- 
lowing general and special accounts would cover the situation: 

Camp Account, to which would be charged all the labor 
supplies and materials used in the camps. 

Live Stock, to which would be charged payments for live 
stock and veterinary expenses. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 285 

Personal Property, to which would be charged all expenses 
pertaining to sleds, chains, wagons, logging tools and camp 
equipage. 

Headquarters. This would cover expense which could not 
at the time be charged directly to the camp account and 
would be necessary only where you were running several 
camps and must have a headquarters camp. To this account 
you would charge, if you did any farming, the expense of 
the farm work, and credit the account with the farm produce 
as delivered to the camps. 

Barn Account, to which you would charge the cost of keep- 
ing and care of your teams, and also your horses during that 
part of the year when they were not being used in the camps. 

Log Expense Account would cover the supervision of the 
operations by your walking-boss, scaling the logs, marking 
the trees for cutting and other similar expenses. 

Contractors' Account. To this account would be charged 
the payments to contractors for delivering logs. 

Log Purchases would cover the amount for logs purchased. 

Driving Expense would cover the cost of driving, or if you 
wished, you could sub-divide the account to show the cost of 
the labor and the expenses separately. 

Log Sales. To this account would be credited all sales of 
logs and also the logs delivered at your mill. 

Office Expense. This account covers expenses of woods 
office. 

Log Account. This would be a general account into which 
the other operating accounts would be closed at the end of 
the season. 

To the above general accounts you might add a few special 
accounts. 

Road Account. To this account you might charge the cost 
of roads which will accomodate more than one season's opera- 
tions, and charge to each season its proportionate share. 

Camp Construction. This would cover the cost of camps 
and be closed in the same way as your Road Account. 

Land Account. This would cover the cost of your land. 



286 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Timber-land Expense. This would cover supervision of 
the land, surveying, fire protection and, if you do not wish 
to run a separate account, the taxes. 

Stumpage Account. This account would be credited with 
all stumpage cut or sold and amounts collected for rentals, etc. 

General Expense. This account would cover the home 
office expenses and salaries. 

At the end of the operating season, you could close into the 
Log Account your operating accounts in such order as to 
show the cost per M. for your own operations, cost per 
M. for contracted logs, total cost of all operated logs on 
the cars or river bank; and after you have made your 
stumpage charge, their total cost, cost of all logs, either 
operated or purchased, cost of the logs driven and, after 
adding their proportion of your general expense, the total 
cost of your logs. Close into your Log Account your Log 
Sales and you will have the amount to be charged or credited 
to profit or loss. 



VII. ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY 

Leader, EDWIN F. GAY 
Dean, The Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University 

MR. GAY: The subject set for discussion at this round 
table is Academic Efficiency. Interest in this subject 
has been inspired everywhere by Bulletin No. 5 of 
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Learning, 
by Morris Llewellyn Cooke, the title of that bulletin being 
Academic and Industrial Efficiency. That report presents the 
views of a business man, an expert in Scientific Manage- 
ment, concerning the extent to which principles of adminis- 
tration of the industrial world are applied in college and 
university administration. 

I think the time has come when such a report should be 
considered seriously and not ridiculed. One may not agree 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 287 

with all the suggestions it contains, but it seems to me that 
one must admit they are worthy of careful thought. Mr. 
Pritchett, after a careful study of conditions, says that in 
the financial side of college administration scientific business 
methods are obviously applicable. There is another side to 
which the methods of business are not so applicable; that is 
when we are dealing with incommensurable quantities such as 
scholarship and manhood. But there is a wide space between 
these two, largely directed to the methods of teaching, where 
the principles of Scientific Management may possibly be 
applied with effectiveness. Mr. Cooke proposes that the 
teaching staff be relieved of the business of administration, 
such as committee work, in order to allow more time for the 
teachers and researchers to specialize. This would require 
more work for the central administration. He proposes also 
that costs in education be determined in terms of some 
standard unit. There is much controversy on this point, for 
there are many things along academic lines which are not to 
be measured by cost. Taken from a broad point of view, 
however, there is a close relation between the cost and the 
output, even in research and the field of instruction. 

Mr. Cooke offers one suggestion which is worthy of notice; 
that is a bureau of inspection. I have observed that it is not 
considered by some just the right thing for a member of the 
administration to visit classes and inspect them. There is 
not sufficient inspection of study and correlation in the 
method of instruction. I believe that the central office is 
justified in instituting a system of inspection to help the 
instructors teach, and moreover I believe it should be im- 
posed upon them. I feel sure that any competent instructor 
would welcome and not resent such a plan. 

Another suggestion which should be considered is the 
establishment, of a better working day. My own impression 
is that we work too long hours and that the work is not prop- 
erly ordered in those hours. We work overtime, but we do 
not work with sufficient intensity while we are at work. 

On the side of the students I wish to emphasize the one need 



2 88 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

seemingly most apparent. There should be something like 
vocational guidance for our students. There should be effort 
made to help them find out what they are fitted for and what 
they ought to work for. I do not mean any ordering of them, 
but careful aid. I believe many students go through college 
feeling the need of something they do not get there. I do not 
mean that studies should be wholly " practical" or vocational, 
but that in a broad sense they should be guided by a realiza- 
tion of their utility in later life. Indeed, this would strongly 
buttress cultural studies; if this aid could be given the stu- 
dents, their interest would be more aroused in all studies. 

There are in the report many valuable suggestions bearing 
directly on administration. There should be more scientific 
business methods introduced into such departments as the 
office of the superintendent of buildings, more scientific janitor 
service, etc. There should be a publicity bureau. There is 
room also for increased efficiency in the registrar's office, in 
the management of finances and in accounting methods. 
There should be standardization in university administration 
in order to effect more efficient management and in order to 
afford more reliable comparison among colleges. 

It is undoubtedly on this side that the more immediate 
result may be looked for in college administration from the 
newly aroused interest in Scientific Management. But we 
may hope that ultimately something of the spirit of Scientific 
Management, its thorough study of the work to be done, its 
thorough adjustment of means to the end, may give an 
added impulse to more efficient teaching. 

It gives me pleasure to call upon Professor Edwin J. Bartlett, 
of the Department of Chemistry of Dartmouth College. 

Mr. Bartlett: In the few minutes which I have been 
invited to use, I will not undertake to confirm or to confute 
the views which any individual may have expressed, but rather 
will try to open the subject broadly to our thought and our 
discussion. 

And at the outset let me ask you to note that in business 
affairs the saving of time, of money, of effort does not of 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 289 

itself bring increased efficiency even when efficiency can be 
accurately measured by dividends. If any captain of industry 
were to put me in charge of a business and I were to start for 
economy, without experience, grasp of the situation or busi- 
ness insight, I might begin by dismissing the expensive adver- 
tising manager, because from my point of view any one can 
write advertisements. I might go on to reduce the annual 
appropriation for advertising from $100,000 to $50,000, send 
departmental buyers to Europe only once instead of twice a 
year, allow them the minimum of traveling expenses and let 
them pay for their own luxuries since they have the fun of the 
trip, stop ten-cent lunches that cost the house fifteen cents, 
dispense with costly exhibits at fairs and expositions, keep the 
old machinery going as long as it can be patched up, eliminate 
every department that does not show a cash profit and do 
innumerable other things that any one can see might effect 
expenditure. These measures might easily be ruinous to the 
business unless the relation of each to the whole had been 
carefully studied out. 

Even less can one be confident of the advantage of a similar 
course in our affairs. 

We must set educational experience, insight and grasp 
over against the same qualities in business. 

The primitive type of college was never better defined than 
as a log with a student at one end and Mark Hopkins at the 
other. But the students are many; the Mark Hopkins 
are few; lesser men take his place; and the log needs to be 
large and complicated to carry them all. 

The college organization divides itself very sharply into two 
branches, — educational and subsidiary. They are not co- 
ordinate. The whole purpose of the college, its founders and 
benefactors lies in the first division; but the business frame- 
work is necessary. It is not to be admitted that education 
should be business-like except in the sense of being well 
organized and without waste; but it can be demanded that 
the business departments of a college shall be educational 
and form a constant exhibit and demonstration of efficiency. 



290 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

Without attempting any exhaustive analysis we may say 
that the subsidiary departments readily divide into the fol- 
lowing branches: 

i. Finance; which deals with investments, collections and 
expenditures, — the department through which all the streams 
of money flow in and out. 

2. Construction and Maintenance; which has charge of 
the important material basis, — the highly developed and 
specialized log upon which the modern college holds its 
sessions. 

3. Records and Discipline; the college clearing-house; a 
cumbrous over-development which could be reduced to great 
simplicity if it were not that college students are not all 
students. 

4. Publication. 

5. Commissary; which enables the college to act as pur- 
veyor, as host and entertainer. 

6. Sanitary; of enormous recent development, including 
medical care of the students, hygiene, gymnastics and athletics. 

7. Statistical; much farther developed in some institu- 
tions than in others. 

8. Social; including general correspondence, entertain- 
ments, functions and ceremonies. 

9. The Library; which some might consider instructional, 
but which is classed here because of the large demand for 
organized administrative work. 

Of the total net expenditures given in the Report of the 
Treasurer of Dartmouth College for 1910-n about 42 per 
cent are for other purposes than instruction; while in 1880 
about 29 per cent were for other than instructional purposes. 

It would require very careful dissection of dissimilar accounts 
to obtain exactly parallel figures, because in this period of 
thirty years the college has not only remolded its accounts 
but has also taken on much more business and added many 
conveniences. About 75 per cent of the students room in 
college dormitories, instead of about 30 per cent as was the 
case thirty years ago; the college has taken on general 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 291 

heating, lighting and water supply; everything is more 
sanitary, more comfortable, even more luxurious. But it is 
safe to say that the expense per student of the subsidiary 
departments, on a comparable basis has more than doubled, 
while the number of undergraduates has increased from 300 
to 1,200. And at the same time the loss in going through 
college — the shrinkage of the classes in four years — is 40 per 
cent, while in the decades beginning and ending with 1880 it 
was only about 20 per cent of those entering. Plainly large 
business interests are involved and the question is suggested, 
"How much does the business side of a college cost per stu- 
dent?" the answer being more valuable according to the 
degree of distribution. 

The various administrative departments of a college are 
related to the world outside of the college, to each other and 
to the primary college consisting of the teachers and students. 
They thus present complicated problems of organization which 
have been only crudely solved. 

The side that faces the public in each case needs to show 
equality with the best business usage, it is to be hoped by 
adapting or originating, and not by imitating. Here offi- 
ces, stenographers, business journeys are necessary. The 
employees take on the ways of the business world. 

The complicated relations of the departments may be illus- 
trated by a single case. A student is removed from college 
by a committee acting for the faculty. The action is based 
upon records collected from the student's instructors by one 
department. The student occupies a room rented in one 
office, and has a room key obtained in another; he has paid 
or failed to pay rent in another; he holds a laboratory table 
and key, and is due in at least five courses of instruction. The 
action must be communicated to all parties concerned and 
made a matter of record. Judging by the experience of a 
customer, the coordination of departments in business houses 
has been only crudely worked out. It is still more crude in 
the college. In this college, at any rate, it is constantly 
improving. 



292 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

The relations of the business departments to the students 
and teachers require the best elementary business qualities. 
The students are keen, critical and suspicious; also they are 
in process of education and should be shown the best possible 
methods; and, since their own manners are largely formed by 
those in authority over them, they should be treated with 
the utmost courtesy and patience. The teachers have at 
least an adequate appreciation of what is due to themselves, 
but readily yield to reasonable rather than arbitrary presen- 
tations. 

Unfailing courtesy, promptness, accuracy, readiness to 
acknowledge and correct errors, and a certain sense of the 
fitness of things, should characterize the employees in the 
business offices of a college; and this suggests a second ques- 
tion, "How can the college recruit men for the administrative 
departments with the proper business training?" 

It should never be forgotten that all the accounting, record- 
ing, building, repairing and entertaining are mere details 
in the onward march of an institution for education. The 
occasional air of haughty autonomy and gloomy mystery in 
these departments is certainly misplaced. It is easy for a 
committee of clever business men on the corporation to issue 
a business order without looking or caring beyond a certain 
end in view, but some of the men who are giving their whole 
time to the college could help them in nearly every problem. 
Orders from the corporation would better come from the 
corporation itself rather than from a subordinate in another 
department. No department, whether of instruction or 
administration, should be dependent for repairs, heat, light, 
the adjustment of charts or apparatus upon the favor of any 
other department. It should be a matter of adjustment by 
some central authority, or manager, with both departments. 

There are certain tests of business efficiency which can gen- 
erally be applied in business, — the maintenance and expan- 
sion of the plant, the quality and quantity of the product, 
and always dividends. No such tests can be applied to the 
business departments of a college. A new building may be 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 293 

the fruit of a gift, and may increase the annual deficit. No 
one can state the relation even approximately between the 
educational product and the efficiency of the heating plant. 
The dividends are in the unseen and intangible world. And 
this suggests a third question, "What is the standard and 
measure of the efficiency of the subsidiary departments of a 
college?" 

I have perhaps given an illustration of the absorption by the 
business departments of more attention than is their due by 
the disproportionate time I have given to that side of the sub- 
ject. But the real business of the college is educational, — to 
produce men for the state in physical, mental and moral fitness. 

In the luminous future when all plans are matured in the 
cold light of scientific logic; when marriages, and the number, 
quality and sex of the progeny, a man's occupation and 
relation to his group, and the time when it is not worth while 
to feed him any longer, are all determined in the same inerrant 
manner, the economic waste which permits a man to go from 
Seattle or Lebanon to Harvard, or from Chicago or Denver 
to Dartmouth, will cease, and a student will choose his college 
on economic grounds, — the cheapest, or the nearest, or per- 
haps the one in which some special branch is best unfolded. 
At present the streams start far back and flow steadily. For 
next year's class not less than 400 nor more than 500 are 
marching hither from all over the land. For the most part 
it is a sentiment that marshals them. 

Then, too, the love that binds a man for ever to his college, 
causing him to bring back gifts and to inspire others with his 
own enthusiasm, springs so little from an appreciation of the 
economy with which its educational advantages are managed, 
that one almost believes that broad spaces, generous rooms, 
artistic adornment, appliances made convenient to one de- 
partment in one place and to another in another place, are 
attractive economy. A noble hall like Webster must leave 
some permanent impress upon a Dartmouth man although 
it has not been used two hours yet in this semester. 

And not a dollar in all the millions of endowment represents 



294 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

earnings, or subscriptions of the people to dividend-paying 
stock. Some one loved the college and its purpose, and gave 
outright a thousand, ten thousand, a million, dollars. And 
while waste of these great gifts would be criminal, one wonders 
whether they would come to an institution managed with 
the closeness of a factory. "There is that scattereth, and yet 
increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, 
but it tendeth to poverty." 

Neither the factory nor the home furnishes a model for the 
college; but if one must be chosen, let it be the home. 

The great problems of economy over which the college 
teacher puzzles most, — the efficiency of his own teaching, 
the intellectual under-development and waste which he sees 
about him — cannot here be touched, but one final question 
can be thrown out, like the waves from a Marconi appara- 
tus, to whomsoever is attuned to receive it, — "What is the 
measure of the efficiency of a college?" 

Mr. Gay: We should like to hear from Professor A. G. 
Webster, of the Department of Physics, Clark University. 

Mr. Webster: In considering the question how far the 
methods of Scientific Management are applicable to academic 
affairs, we have first to consider whether there is any resem- 
blance between the purposes of college and university activities 
and those of business. Here we are confronted at the very 
outset with a striking difference. The object of business 
is to make money, and to this consideration everything else 
is subordinated. In this very conference, several of the 
speakers have spoken of the necessity for the manager to 
have his eye always upon the balance sheet, and this senti- 
ment has generally drawn applause. In the case of the 
college or university, nothing is farther from the truth. The 
object is not to make money. Unfortunately, there is a 
good deal of difference of opinion as to what the object is, and 
it would doubtless be a capital idea to come to an agreement 
on this matter. But we can say without much fear of 
contradiction, that its object is twofold; first, to develop 
the powers of the student and fit him to make his proper 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 295 

contribution to life and civilization; and second, to advance 
civilization by making a direct contribution to learning by 
means of intelligent research. This last object is often lost 
sight of in this country. In fact, it has seemed to me that 
our business friends, the scientific managers, so willing to 
make suggestions with regard to the management of academic 
affairs, have had chiefly in mind technical schools, whose 
object is pretty definitely a business one. But this is far 
from being the general case. We have to teach men not only 
to earn a living, to construct engines, dynamos and tele- 
phones, but to live a correct life, to enjoy beauty and to 
ameliorate the conditions of life in general. Let us admit at 
once that in its purely business undertakings, such as the 
investment and disbursement of funds, the providing of 
buildings and care of grounds, the furnishing of food and 
lodging, a university should be guided by the same business 
considerations as any commercial undertaking. At the 
same time, the element of cost and of profit is even here not 
the main one, but efficiency is measured by the accomplish- 
ment of the object sought. Mr. Cooke may be able to make 
excellent suggestions with regard to the running of a physical 
laboratory, and yet be perfectly helpless when asked how to 
increase the efficiency of a course attempting to give an idea 
of the beauties of Shakespeare or Chaucer, or of a course in 
philosophy or Sanskrit. 

Without doubt, the chief successes of Scientific Manage- 
ment have been due to the standardization of the output. 
In academic work such standardization is quite impossible, 
the object being not to turn out a large number of individuals 
exactly alike, but to have each one different from the others 
according to his manifold needs. This immediately negatives 
many of the leading methods applicable to business. But 
there are certainly some things that we can learn from busi- 
ness. The first is that we must have the best possible raw 
material to work upon. It is assumed in any business estab- 
lishment that the main concern of every person connected 
with it is the interests of the establishment, and if this is not 



296 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

the case, he is asked to leave. In the case of the colleges, 
this is far from being the case. The student body is largely- 
diluted by the presence of persons whose chief interest is not 
any of the purposes for which our colleges were founded. 
This is a cause of great waste, and they should be summarily 
removed. Again, while our teaching body is composed of 
men of high character and ability, I believe that I may say 
without injustice, that their ability and training are not as 
great as they should be, and are inferior to those of the pro- 
fessorate in Germany, France and Italy. In order to remedy 
this, it is necessary to offer greater attractions for first-class 
ability to go into academic work, both by increase of salaries 
and by removing from professors the drudgery of business 
affairs and the teaching of unwilling and unfit students. Here 
either Scientific Management or what is the same thing, plain 
common sense, can be of great help. I do not believe, as it 
is often stated, that the best brains of the country are in 
business, but I do believe that the quality of professors can 
be very materially raised by an intelligent effort, such as has 
not been made up to the present. 

I have received one very positive suggestion from the 
addresses that I have heard here. Mr. Taylor has stated that 
under conditions of Scientific Management, there is required 
a personnel of about one manager or planner to every three 
workers. The adoption of this ratio in the universities, of 
one instructor to every three students, would undoubtedly 
enormously increase the efficiency, as has been shown in the 
adoption of the preceptorial system at Princeton. It is also 
noticeable that in those institutions that are devoted to 
graduate work, where this ratio more nearly obtains, the 
efficiency is very high. Unfortunately, while in business the 
increased efficiency brings increased returns more than suffi- 
cient to pay the additional expense of the large managing 
staff, in the case of the university the increased efficiency is 
attended with no increased income. This is another of those 
fundamental differences which I have pointed out. The 
advantage to the community which accrues must, however, 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 297 

eventually justify the increased expenditure, as has been 
found to be the case at Princeton. 

The attempt to standardize the output of professors by 
counting the hours or by any system of cards or clocks, can 
be attended only with laughable results. All our best pro- 
fessors now work all the time that there is, and no one who is 
acquainted with their habits will admit that they have a work- 
ing day of a definite number of hours, nor can they have. 
No one sits down to write poetry from nine to twelve, or has 
definite hours to engage in research in pure mathematics. 
He must do it when the idea occurs to him and it is just as 
likely to be in the middle of the night or on Sunday, as at any 
other time. The university does not pay the professor by 
the piece-rate, or by the task system. It gives him certain 
duties and expects him to perform them. Good business will 
undoubtedly demand that he shall be subject to inspection, 
for even among professors there will be some incompetents and 
some sluggards. The inspection, however, must be by com- 
petent hands. A man must be judged by a jury of his peers, 
and if he is what he ought to be, the number of his peers 
may be very limited. Rather than to provide a definite sys- 
tem to do this, the best and simplest way will probably be 
to find out the man's reputation among his scientific colleagues. 
In this connection, I may speak of methods of appointment 
of professors. In this country, these methods are often 
extremely crude. To be sure, presidents do not often now 
appoint personal favorites nor does political influence cut 
much figure, at least in this part of the country. The members 
of a department are generally consulted, and their advice 
usually taken. Very much better, however, is the plan 
adopted in most European countries, of having a qualified 
committee of experts in the subject nominate the best candi- 
date, disregarding all other circumstances than those of 
competence. In Italy, this committee is composed of pro- 
fessors in the same subject from other universities as well as 
from the one where the vacancy exists. Such a plan must 
inevitably raise the quality. 



298 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

I come finally to the question of research, so often over- 
looked in discussions of university efficiency. There is no 
doubt that this country has so far not contributed anything 
like her share to the advancement of learning which might 
properly be expected, considering her great prosperity and the 
size of her educational plant. We spend more on education 
than any other country, but we do not get a corresponding 
return. Some of the reasons for this I have tried to suggest. 

In closing, let me strongly deprecate the valuation of 
research by any outsider; I mean by one who is not himself 
devoted to the advancement of learning as his chief pursuit, 
and who has not himself been an original producer. Nothing 
can do more to confirm the position of mediocrity in which 
this country finds itself in the status of learning, than the 
application of commercial judgments to matters that are 
essentially concerned with the spirit. 

Mr. Gay: In some of the womens' colleges, I understand, 
practical work is being done along the lines suggested in Mr. 
Cooke's report. We shall take unusual interest, therefore, 
in the remarks of the next speaker, Miss Laura Gill, President 
of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. 

Miss Gill: The brief testimony which I wish to bring to 
this conference relates solely to the interest which women 
are showing in an application of Scientific Management to 
academic problems. Indeed, I may almost claim that the 
chief interest which women have yet evinced in Scientific 
Management has been because of this important application 
of it. 

During the past months, since the issue of Mr. Cooke's 
pamphlet upon Academic Efficiency, I have tried to imagine 
what impression it might have made upon me had it found 
me unprepared for its views. So much of the comment has 
apparently arisen from a general lack of acquaintance with 
the principles and methods of Scientific Management that 
one is tempted to attribute a large share of adverse criticism 
to a conservative instinct to run to cover before an unknown 
force. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 299 

In February, 1910, Mr. Taylor invited to his house the 
committee of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae which is 
composed of women who are trustees of colleges. He gave 
them an exposition of the philosophy of Scientific Manage- 
ment, and showed them its practical working in the plant 
of the Tabor Manufacturing Company. A week later Mr. 
Cooke gave an entire day to a conference with this same com- 
mittee in Boston, initiating them still further into the possi- 
ble application of these principles to committee work and to 
college administration. 

So you can readily see that no one of us women trustees of 
colleges could read Mr. Cooke's report without the memory 
of explanations which destroyed interrogation points almost 
before they could be formed. Only one woman in our entire 
committee revealed any failure to comprehend that there 
was large significance for college administration in these 
new phases of exact knowledge, cooperation and legitimate 
economy. 

The eagerness to reap an immediate harvest of increased 
efficiency was checked by an evident lack of trained agents 
to make the requisite studies. Vassar College, however, 
proved itself ready to make the prehminary start in a greater 
degree of systematized business control. A woman of wide 
practical experience was appointed without engrossing specific 
duties, to study each part of the business activities of the 
residence life seriatim; and to suggest, as well as to effect, 
improvements. The management of the bakeries and the 
laundry, and the greater division of the matrons' duties on 
functional lines, came duly to consideration with most satis- 
factory results. Whether this preliminary work shall go on 
to full fruit in any detailed application of Scientific Manage- 
ment, time alone will tell. But any modest beginning is 
valuable. 

A meager study was made in May, 1910, in regard to the 
method of purchase and prices paid in New England colleges 
for diplomas. Yale University seemed to be the only 
institution which contracted separately for its parchment, 



3 oo TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

engraving and engrossing. The prices seemed to vary from 
seventy-five cents to a dollar and ten cents for practically 
the same product, according to the degree of specification in 
the method of purchase. 

Harvard University has been introducing great economies 
into its stationery and printing budgets, not by any reduction 
in quality, but by reducing the number of forms, the number 
of buying centers, and by studying the placement of various 
insertions in their publications. 

But to return to our womens' problem. We found that 
even any proper system of stores was temporarily impossible 
for lack of trained workers. Therefore, our next thought 
was to get some women under apprenticeship for stores super- 
vision, award of printing contracts, and registrar's duties. 
The beginning is modest indeed, but today two college women 
are in apprenticeship approximately as are the young college 
men. Whether the impracticability of superintendence for 
women will prevent them from reaping the full benefit of 
such a training we shall soon see. 

In any event, the women trustees of colleges are practically 
agreed that Scientific Management has a definite value for 
them in the functional management of dormitories; in the 
purchase, storage, and distribution of supplies; in printing; 
and in registrar's methods. How soon we can get proper 
agents to effect these economies of material and human force 
is a serious problem; but it does not destroy our belief that 
help is coming at last. 

This, then, is a simple statement in regard to the extent 
of womens' interests in the application of Scientific Manage- 
ment to academic problems. 

Mr. Gay: I call next upon Professor John K. Lord, of the 
Department of Latin in Dartmouth College. Professor Lord 
has shown not only long service of efficient teaching, but as 
acting president of Dartmouth College has been brought into 
close contact with problems of administration. 

Mr. Lord: The report of Mr. Cooke upon Academic and 
Industrial Efficiency calls for a large measure of assent. One 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 301 

must agree with very much of what he says of the application 
of Scientific Management to the finances, accounts, the care 
and use of buildings, equipment, purchasing, correspondence, 
and in general to all that goes under the designation of the 
"plant" of a college. Perhaps the application may be still 
further extended to matters that are not so directly in the line 
of business, as to questions of tenure, of salary and of burden- 
some duties. 

The report is written with an evident sympathy for the 
difficulties of college administration, and it ought to be 
examined with a corresponding openness to suggestions of 
improvement by college administrators. 

At the very outset of the report, however, one is impressed 
by the failure to recognize the fundamental difference between 
a college and a business corporation. There is an attempt 
to reduce them to a common denominator, and that denomi- 
nator is "profits." "One is struck," says the report, "in 
any such study of collegiate conditions with the absence of 
any gage of efficiency which even remotely resembles, for 
instance, profits in an industrial undertaking." 

With this idea of the profits of a business enterprise as the 
gage of efficiency, it is not strange that Mr. Cooke objects 
to many things that are done in a college, and regards them 
as waste, or on account of his system refuses to take them into 
consideration. He objects, for instance, to the waste of time 
and strength in committee work by members of a faculty; 
but he does not realize that, while there may be some waste 
and much weariness in it, there is nothing that so effectively 
brings a member of a faculty into direct and sympathetic 
relation to the inner life of a college, and into a knowledge of 
its vital problems, as work on an important committee. 

Or again, in making a comparison of efficiency between the 
work of a college teacher and a workman in some business, 
he finds it necessary to throw out of his reckoning all that the 
teacher does except in the working hours that are common to 
him and the laborer. Thus he refuses to consider the time 
which the teacher devotes to his studies in his evenings or his 



302 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

vacations, — time which is often indispensable for preparation 
and always for growth — without which it would be impossible 
for him to perform his class-room duties with the inspiration 
and enthusiasm that are essential to success, and that are 
drawn only from fresh study. With equal impropriety might 
it have been said that, because a laborer does not spend his 
evenings and holidays in occupations tending to increase his 
efficiency in his daily work, he therefore fails in efficiency in 
comparison with the college teacher. The standard of one 
cannot be the standard of the other. 

Scientific Management, whose gage of efficiency is profits, 
cannot be applied to an organization that is not run for 
profits as it can be applied to one that is. A college looks to 
profit, but not to profits. Profit as applied to it, and profits 
as applied to a business enterprise, are incommensurable 
terms. The latter are exhibited in a balance sheet, based on 
cost of materials, labor, wear and tear, etc., each item of which 
can be definitely known; the product can be inventoried at 
a set market value, and at any given time the concern can be 
shown to be solvent or insolvent. The profits of a business 
concern are for the immediate benefit of its stockholders. 

It is different with a college. It has no stockholders who 
look for dividends. Its profit is not for those who have given 
money for its support or for those who administer its affairs, 
but for society at large; and it is expressed not in dollars and 
cents, but in life and character. Such products cannot be 
inventoried or tagged with a market price, nor can they 
be secured at a definitely tabulated cost. Intelligence and 
morality are not bought at a price, but are the product of 
other intelligence and morality expressing themselves in close 
contact and often in indirect and unsuspected ways. A 
college is preeminently a place where the spiritual, in its 
broadest sense, holds control, and this is precisely what cannot 
be expressed in figures or shown in tabulated form. While 
it may be developed under definite, and to a certain extent 
formal, methods, it cannot be reduced to the measure of 
"student hours" as expressing its real content and meaning. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 303 

It is a matter of common remark that the power of a teacher 
does not depend primarily upon his knowledge, or his diligence 
as given in hours, but upon his personality, which makes use 
of knowledge and diligence as means in forwarding the great 
end of character. The power of sympathy and the ability 
to influence, which are the highest elements of a teacher's 
value, cannot be stated in any known formula. And fortu- 
nately these vary with different men. One teacher is effective 
with one student, another with another, so that in a given 
college one teacher may be effective with one set and not 
with another, or at one time and not at another, and there 
is no possible way of accurately establishing relative effi- 
ciency. In the long run one teacher may clearly be more 
effective than another, but the fact will appear from general 
comparisons covering considerable time, and not from a 
tabulation of particular results. 

If Scientific Management means merely the attempt to 
secure the best results by a careful observation and a rational 
interpretation of facts, it is as applicable to a literary institu- 
tion as elsewhere; but if it is a method of determining results 
on the basis of cost and profits, exhibited in a tabulated balance 
sheet, it cannot be so applied, since intellectual and moral 
forces, which are the staple of the college industry, cannot be 
reduced to the standard of the counting-room. There is 
much in Mr. Cooke's report relating to the business manage- 
ment of colleges for which those who administer them may be 
grateful, but they can hardly feel that the standard of the 
material shall become that of the intellectual and the spiritual. 

Mr. Gay: Professor Charles W. Mixter, of the Depart- 
ment of Political Economy of the University of Vermont, is 
concerned with a field of research and of teaching which brings 
one into closer touch with the facts of business than does any 
other field of teaching. We are fortunate, therefore, that 
Professor Mixter could be with us. 

Mr. Mixter: Our colleges and universities stand in such 
crying need of increased efficiency, and Mr. Cooke in per- 
forming a great service has been so unreasonably attacked 



304 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

by many persons possessing but slight acquaintance with the 
principles of Scientific Management, that I am inclined to 
take up the cudgels in his defense. But he is able to defend 
himself; and therefore some remarks at the outset in adverse 
criticism may be of greater use. 

In the first place it may be pointed out that Mr. Cooke 
in his report does not present a complete scheme for Scientific 
Management; he does not, generally speaking, get beyond 
suggestions for systematized management. That there is a 
vast difference between systematized management and Scien- 
tific Management has been fully demonstrated to us by Mr. 
Kendall in his address this afternoon. Nobody knows this 
any better, of course, than Mr. Cooke himself; and doubtless 
he had good reasons for not going extensively into Scientific 
Management. Nevertheless, I think it was an error of 
omission that he did not more fully indicate the ultimate 
destination of the movement he was forwarding. The time 
will come when the colleges will take up Scientific Manage- 
ment, and when they do, the work will begin just where Taylor 
began at the outset of the development of his system, — with 
the ascertainment by unit time-studies of what constitutes for 
the students "a fair day's work," and the devising of suitable 
means for securing the performance of that "fair day's work." 

On the other hand, I think it was an error that Mr. Cooke 
said anything at all just now about change in tenure of office 
for professors, about the economic waste undoubtedly con- 
nected with insufficiently controlled research work and about 
the possibility of the introduction of standardized lecture 
notes. I am not saying that he was not right in his position 
on these matters. It may be that we shall live to see a marked 
modification of the theory and practice of the tenure of 
appointment of college professors, and also, what now seems 
incredible, that we shall all like it. It is a principle of Scien- 
tific Management applied to industry not to discharge men 
right and left to secure efficiency, but to select them and 
change them about within the establishment until they are 
placed in positions for which they are fitted. If the time ever 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 305 

comes (as Mr. Cooke hints) when professors are changed 
about freely between institutions with no stigma attached, 
so that each finds just the situation where he can be most 
successful and happy in his work, we shall undoubtedly wel- 
come the change. But whatever may be the solution of the 
problem of reconciling security of tenure of office with teach- 
ing efficiency, and whether or not there is a future for "stand- 
ardized lecture notes" (and I think there is, if by "lecture 
notes" we mean syllabuses for whole courses), it is certain 
that it was a mistake for Mr. Cooke to say anything about 
these things in the incomplete way he did at this time. He 
needlessly set the whole academic world and the New York 
Evening Post by the ears. 

In the remainder of my time permit me to develop briefly, 
and in a somewhat dogmatic form which I hope you will 
pardon, some suggestions for systematized management of our 
colleges, following in most particulars the lead and inspiration 
of Mr. Cooke. In the first place we need an "organization 
chart" and an "organization record" showing clearly the line 
of authority for each individual together with his duties in 
detail. Then, too, we need far more internal publicity, — the 
publication for the information of the faculty of all sorts of 
significant statistics. But chief of all we require a careful anal- 
ysis of work, and differentiation of function in the workers. 

We should distinguish between administration and teach- 
ing, and between different sorts of administration, and should 
always have designated officials (not necessarily in each case 
separate persons) perform the different functions. Adminis- 
trative work which is pure business, — the management of 
finances, care of buildings and grounds, the purchasing of 
routine supplies and the like — should be done entirely by 
members of an administrative staff who have no part in the 
work of instruction. The executive chief of this group of 
officials should be the Treasurer or some representative of the 
Treasurer's office, such as a Comptroller. That part of 
administration which is not pure business, or teaching either, 
but administration directly affected with an academic interest, 



3 o6 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

should be handled upon the principle of segregation of func- 
tion, but with care taken not to carry that principle too far. 
Academic ideals are involved; it is essential that the spirit 
of scholastic enthusiasm be not blunted nor institutional 
unity destroyed. 

The general scope of the institution being determined by the 
trustees — what schools there shall be, leading to what degrees 
— the work of administration that overlaps the work of in- 
struction falls naturally into the four following subdivisions: 

i. The function of "drafting," which consists in organizing 
and grouping the individual courses of instruction and making 
the rules for the students respecting their studies, — i.e., 
planning how they shall "go through the shop," what sort 
of an education they shall get. The projects of law under 
this head should be formulated by a standing committee of 
the faculty, known as the Bureau of Design and Standards, 
and enacted into law by the whole faculty. 

2. The function of "routing and despatching," which 
consists in the execution of the plans made by those charged 
with the drafting function — the "enrolment" of students, 
the arrangement of the "hour plan" and similar things. 
This work should be done by the Despatcher, a non-teaching 
official of the administrative staff. 

3. The function of the determination of standards: stand- 
ards for admission; standards for promotion and graduation; 
standards for scholarships and other student aids; standards 
of eligibility for playing on the athletic teams. The fixing of 
these and other standards should be done by the Bureau of 
Design and Standards: i.e., this faculty board should formu- 
late definite proposals which go into effect only upon enact- 
ment by the faculty as a whole. 

4. The function of maintenance of standards. It is abso- 
lutely essential if standards are to be maintained that this 
function should be discharged by members of the adminis- 
trative staff having at the time no work of instruction, al- 
though they should have had wide teaching experience. The 
point is not so much that active teachers will not have time 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 307 

for this work, as that they simply cannot do it properly. 
They are not expert and detached enough. 

To indicate briefly the duties of the two chief officials per- 
forming this class of work. The Supervisor of Admission 
should have charge of the fulfilment of the requirements for 
admission. Not only should he attend to the routine aspects 
of his task with the thoroughness of an expert, but also he 
should magnify his office and make himself fully acquainted 
with the work of the preparatory schools. He should keep 
records of students' performance after entering college, clas- 
sified according to the schools they come from and accord- 
ing to the sort of preparation they have had. He should 
act as an adviser to the Bureau of Design and Standards in 
improving requirements and methods of admission. In time, 
under such a system, it is to be hoped that all colleges will 
admit upon the basis of the whole record of the student in his 
preparatory school, rather than on the basis of specifications 
calling for particular studies and the "grades" in those studies. 

Then there should be the Inspector of Progress of Students 
who, in the first place, should have general control over the 
system of examinations for matriculates, — control to the 
extent of securing sufficient and reliable data as to the work 
of the students. He should be careful, of course, not to inter- 
fere unduly with the officers of instruction who necessarily 
do the examining; but these should not be left free as at 
present to be as much "out of line" as they see fit. The 
endeavor should be made by the Inspector (by furnishing 
forms and clerical assistance) to get from the instructors 
detailed student performance reports, in place of the time- 
honored "grades." 

The Inspector, through his assistants, should obtain com- 
plete and accurate records of attendance of students. He 
alone should grant permits for exemptions and irregularities 
touching scholastic work and pass on all excuses. By means 
of a corps of official coaches (not necessarily a large and very 
expensive body, as Mr. Cooke points out) he should show 
deficient students how to study, and ascertain whether they 



3 o8 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

are delinquent rather than merely slow and hard to learn. 
With the best of intentions many students go through the 
motions merely of study; there is speed and feed of a sort, 
but no "depth of cut." Others are of the sort that do not 
care and do not try, and whose presence in college is demoraliz- 
ing to the whole student body. With the Inspector should 
be lodged the sole power of dropping students and otherwise 
disciplining them individually, appeal from his decisions 
allowable only to the President. If the Inspector is not a 
success, the President should put a new man in his place, 
not weaken or abolish the office. I have no doubt but that 
in most colleges, as Mr. Cooke intimates, this one innovation 
alone would greatly reduce the amount of "spoiled work" — 
students who needlessly fall by the way. 

Moreover, if in any college the Inspector of Progress of 
Students had his corps of coaches well established, these men 
could make the unit time-studies and carry on other investi- 
gations which eventually would furnish the basis for installing 
completely developed Scientific Management. The Des- 
patcher should not be a mere rule-of-thumb functionary, but 
able and enterprising, and capable of making improvements 
in the art of arranging hour plans and scheduling students, 
regulars and irregulars, through their courses. Then it 
would be possible to introduce an automatic incentive to 
good work which is wholly lacking under existing lock-step 
arrangements for promotion and graduation. Colleges are 
now like an old-style time-wage workshop in which the men 
are paid for their time, — not for their performance — and 
the performance, for the most part, is only such as to avoid 
by a fairly safe margin the danger of dismissal. 

In this connection I wish to endorse a suggestion of Mr. 
Cooke, that there ought to be a coach or coaches for the 
faculty, especially for the younger and less experienced mem- 
bers. These last need to be shown how to teach and properly 
police their class-rooms, and possible neglect of duty should 
be safeguarded. At present, instructors as well as students 
are usually left altogether too much to their own devices; 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 309 

and the hours for both are often excessive. The work of 
supervision of the faculty should be done as a regular thing 
and not exceptionally, and of course under the direction 
of some person other than the one occupying the office of 
Inspector of Progress of Students. 

There are various other academic administrative functions 
of importance that I have no time to deal with beyond urging 
that as far as possible in each case they be committed to the 
charge of a man rather than a committee. Many of these 
tasks are not so arduous, and do not call for such special 
expertness or detachment, that they cannot be effectively 
performed by members of the teaching staff. 

In place of the wofully inefficient, time-wasting committee 
system now in vogue in colleges, there should be in general 
a ministerial system, with an inner circle of the more important 
ministers forming the President's Cabinet. The Cabinet 
should meet regularly at least once a week, with the President 
(or in his absence the Vice-President) in the chair. Its mem- 
bership (varying at times according to the sort of business to 
the fore) might be as follows: 

1. The Comptroller. (The representative of the Treasurer 
— the budget chief, and chief of the department of material 
services.) 

2. The Dean of the Faculty. (The supervisor of the 
instructors, not of the students.) 

3. The Chairman of the Bureau of Design and Standards. 

4. The Supervisor of Admission. 

5. The Inspector of Progress of Students. 

6. The Despatcher (who might also be Statistician). 

7. The Supervisor of Health, Morals, " Outside- Work " 
and Living Conditions of the Students. 

All legislative measures should be passed upon by the 
Cabinet before presentation to the general faculty. Impor- 
tant measures should be amended only by the Cabinet, upon 
suggestion of the faculty, and then resubmitted as amended 
to the faculty. 1 

1 For further discussion see pp. 356, 358, 362-365, 370-376. 



FRIDAY EVENING, OCTOBER THE THIRTEENTH 

Chairman, HONORABLE ROBERT P. BASS 

Governor of New Hampshire 



SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
GOVERNMENT 

INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIRMAN 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I TAKE it that the chief requisite of a presiding officer 
at a meeting of this sort is brevity. This evening's 
session of our conference is to be devoted to the appli- 
cation of business methods to the government of states and 
we are to be so fortunate as to hear this subject discussed 
by a man who has not only developed an efficient and sys- 
tematic business method of conducting the finances of great 
municipalities, but also has been able to get his ideas actu- 
ally put into practice. In recognition of his scientific 
achievements in this and other directions he was appointed 
by President Taft to the chairmanship of The President's 
Commission on Economy and Efficiency. I have the honor 
of introducing to you Dr. Frederick A. Cleveland. 

THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
TO THE ACTIVITIES OF THE STATE 

BY FREDERICK A. CLEVELAND 

Director of the Bureaus of Municipal Research of New York and of Philadelphia 
Chairman of the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

IT is commonly assumed that the great public corporations 
in which we are all interested do not lend themselves as 
well to economic management as do private corporations. 
While experience has been such as to lend color to such a con- 
clusion, I am convinced that there is nothing inherent in gov- 

313 



314 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

ernment which stands in the way of highest efficiency; that 
the fault has been not in our form of government but in the 
attitude of the people towards the government. So general 
is the opinion that the fault lies with the form of government, 
however, that before entering on the subject of Scientific 
Management as applied to the state, I want to call your atten- 
tion to certain aspects of organization which at least point 
in another direction. 

Scientific Management, as I understand the term, means 
the intelligent direction and control of affairs, — direction 
and control based on complete, accurate and well-digested 
information. The activities of the state to which applica- 
tion is to be made are those activities which are to be man- 
aged. That is, management has to do with the business 
conducted by the administration as distinct from that which 
is conducted by the legislature and by the courts. In so far 
as legislation has to do with determining what is to be done, 
however, this may also be considered as a part of management. 

The Meaning of Scientific Management. The full meaning 
of Scientific Management is comprehended in the word 
"planning" and in the phrase "the execution of plans." As 
applied to the state, "planning" is understood to mean the 
intelligent determination of: 

i. What work is to be done. 

2. What organization shall be provided. 

3. What personnel is required. 

4. What funds and material and equipment are needed to 
enable the personnel to execute work efficiently. 

5. By what means the funds, material and equipment 
needed shall be obtained. 

"The execution of plans," as distinguished from "plan- 
ning," is understood to mean: 

1. Directing or selecting the personnel, the material, 
equipment, and the technical methods employed in execut- 
ing each piece of work, or "job," which is to be undertaken. 

2. Giving orders in such form and with such instruction 
that they may be understood. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 315 

3. Inspecting and reviewing each result as a means of 
determining whether each order has been properly executed. 

4. Obtaining the information needed to give perspective; 
i.e., collecting, classifying and summarizing the facts about 
the business, and making them available in such form that 
the manager may at all times see the business as a whole. 
The manager needs to get the mental picture of each condi- 
tion and result for which he is responsible. He needs to see 
the net result as well as such detail as is necessary to explain 
conditions and net results, thereby enabling him to review 
decisions made, and orders issued; to locate responsibility for 
failures and losses; to determine what part of the organization 
is efficient and what part is inefficient; to know exactly what 
has been purchased, what has been paid for things purchased 
and which things are adapted to the use for which purchased; to 
ascertain where economies may be effected and wastes stopped; 
to find out whether unsatisfactory results are due to failure on 
the part of those who are "executing" or due to lack of intelli- 
gence on the part of those who are "planning." 

5. In addition to these processes, and as an incident to 
Scientific Management, he who executes plans should also 
report conditions and the results of action to those who are 
responsible for "planning," with recommendations looking 
towards a better adaptation of the organization and material 
equipment to the work to be done, and with estimates based 
on experience setting forth the funds and authorizations 
required to carry on the business with highest success. 

Assuming that this is all comprehended in the term 
scientific management of the business of the state and con- 
sidering the many subjects which may come before those 
responsible for the conduct of public affairs, it must be appar- 
ent that several volumes might be written without exhaust- 
ing the topic assigned for this address. You will be relieved, 
therefore, when I say that I do not intend to discuss more 
than one phase of it; viz., the instruments of precision which 
are available to the managers of public institutions. In fact, 
the topic has been still further narrowed to a few suggestions 



316 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

pertaining to those instruments of precision which are avail- 
able, but which have not been generally used as a means of 
obtaining the information needed by managers for accurately 
thinking about public business. 

State Constitutions and Municipal Charters Based on Principles 
of Scientific Management. Before taking up this phase of the 
information side of the subject, however, may I not be in- 
dulged in one other general observation; viz., that the institu- 
tions of democracy are cast on practically the same lines as 
are the institutions of private business; that the modern 
democratic state finds its prototype in the modern private 
business corporation; that in the age-long conflict between 
autocracy (or incorporated privilege) and democracy (or 
organized citizenship) the devices which were evolved by 
citizens for the successful prosecution of private business, 
for locating responsibility, for "planning and the executing 
of plans," were insinuated into their charters of government; 
until finally in this country, at least, the last vestige of legal 
authority based on organized privilege was cast off, and in 
the reorganization of our institutions the citizen was given 
the same place and interest in the public corporation that the 
shareholder has in the private corporation. 

It may be of interest in this relation hastily to review the 
constitutional and charter provisions which have been made 
for Scientific Management. The underlying theory of the 
American commonwealth is: that it is a highly refined trustee- 
ship, in which the citizen is both sovereign and beneficiary; 
the corporation (the government) has been incorporated by 
the citizen sovereign as his trustee; public welfare and public 
funds and properties are the entrusted interest and estate. 
In incorporating this governing agency every precaution has 
been taken to make the officers both responsive to the sovereign 
will and responsible to citizenship for the proper execution of 
powers devolving upon them. To this end it is provided that 
the powers of government shall be exercised by two classes, 
an electorate and an official class. 

The purpose of the electorate is to provide a non-official 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 317 

class whose duties shall be to determine and express the 
popular will: 

1. With respect to all subjects having to do with the modi- 
fication of the articles of incorporation — the amendment 
of Constitution. 

2. With respect to the succession of governing agents — 
the election and recall of officers. 

3. With respect to certain other fundamental questions 
which are referred to the people by the official class, or other- 
wise — the initiative and the referendum. 

This is the provision made by shareholders for regularly 
expressing their views on subjects of common welfare. 

The purpose of the official class is to execute the powers 
essential to "planning" and to the "execution of plans," i.e., 
to manage the estate for the purposes set forth in the deed 
of trust — the Constitution. To the end that management 
may be scientific (and at the same time both responsive and 
responsible to citizenship), our constitutions require the co- 
operation of both legislative and administrative agents in 
order to do business, — i.e., the legislature must decide what 
is to be done, what organization and equipment shall be pro- 
vided, and what funds should be granted; and the adminis- 
trative agents must be relied on to execute these plans, 
subject to review by both the legislature and the courts. 

Instruments of Precision Available to Public Officers. Sci- 
ence assumes, as a basis for its conclusions, accurate infor- 
mation. Management, as a subject to which methods of 
science are applied, is no exception. Accurate information 
pertaining to management requires the use of instruments 
of precision. Among the instruments of precision which 
have been invented for use in management, and which are 
usually left out of the fist of equipment provided for the 
management of public institutions, are the following: 

1. A scientific budget. 

2. A balance sheet. 

3. An operation account. 

4. A system of detail cost and efficiency records and reports. 



318 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

I do not wish you to understand that I am suggesting that 
these are all of the instruments of precision available to the 
managers of state institutions. They are simply the ones 
that I have chosen for discussion this evening. In going over 
the general list of processes which are involved in planning 
and in executing plans, it is obvious that but few processes are 
included within these topics. They are taken, however, as 
forming a part of a group having to do with the business of 
government. 

Perhaps you think that I have gone far afield to speak of 
these as instruments of precision; you may question whether 
they belong to the same category as micrometers, speedom- 
eters, thermometers and the like. On second thought, 
however, I think that you will agree that for purpose of 
management these instruments are properly classified. 

The Budget as an Instrument of Precision. For institu- 
tional "planning," a scientific budget is the best known and 
most highly developed instrument of precision that has yet 
been devised. 

If the legislature is to act intelligently on questions of 
policy, and if this branch of the service is to be held to a 
strict accountability, there must be some means provided 
for presenting a definite program to be financed; each new 
legislature must have laid before it an accurate statement 
showing exactly what has been done and what is proposed; 
and this statement should be prepared by those who are in 
position to obtain accurate information as a basis for official 
judgment as well as for the consideration of citizens whose 
opinions may be expressed through publicity agencies, peti- 
tion, remonstrances, etc., and who express themselves authori- 
tatively through the electorate. This end is accomplished by 
having a statement of what has been done, and of proposals 
for future work, submitted by executive officers. The state- 
ments thus proposed are required to be submitted to legisla- 
tive agents — those charged with responsibility for adopting 
plans; the plans when adopted by the legislature, however, are 
subject to veto or expressed disapproval by the "executive." 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 319 

In view of these provisions, the conclusion seems fully- 
warranted that our state constitutions and municipal charters 
amply provide for intelligent and efficient "planning," and 
for locating responsibility for unintelligence, for neglect of 
duty, for bad judgment and for failure to measure up to the 
requirements. 

That is to say, those who are responsible for administering 
state governments and municipalities, those who are in the 
best position to do so, are required to submit in the form of 
a budget, a definite plan, or proposal, to be financed. The 
estimates are required by law to be prepared by what we may 
call our "functional managers." Those who have to deal 
with the problem of protecting life and property, and with 
the preservation of order, are required to present a definite 
plan for policing; those who are charged with the technical 
and highly expert methods required to protect and promote 
the health of the state or municipality must submit a definite, 
concrete plan for doing so, with an estimate of what it will 
cost; those who are responsible for the care of the dependent, 
defective and delinquent, for the construction and mainte- 
nance of streets, bridges and sewers, for the promotion of 
education, art and recreation, for the management of public 
service enterprises, are required to submit in detail their plans; 
while those who are responsible for the general business and 
finances of the government are required to assemble all these 
details and state them in the form of a budget of estimates 
of expenditures and of revenues required to meet them. 

If the budget is scientifically prepared, if it is presented 
for the consideration of the legislature and of the people in 
such form that the "plan" proposed may be readily grasped, 
if the facts are arranged in such manner that complete infor- 
mation is readily available for the consideration of every 
question of policy to be considered, then the legislature and 
each member may be held responsible for the faithful and 
efficient discharge of duty. The appropriation bill, as a 
mandate to be executed, will mean something to the executive 
and to the people. The executive will be in the position of 



320 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

first having submitted a plan for consideration and of accept- 
ing or vetoing a plan adopted. If passed over his veto, he 
may then accept responsibility for refusing to obey the man- 
date of the legislature, i.e., refusing to spend its money for the 
purposes authorized; and may go before the people on the 
issue raised. 

In other words, what I wish to get before you as a principle 
is this: that in the first place our public corporations have 
been organized with a view to planning and executing plans, 
that our legislature, acting in the capacity of representative 
of the people, usually comes into office with little experience 
in governing, but, being responsible for deciding on plans to 
be executed under terms of public policy, in order to make 
such agency effective, finds it is necessary to have the expert 
agents of government prepare those plans and submit them 
to the legislature. By so doing, the legislature is made 
responsible for either accepting or rejecting those plans which 
have been prepared by the managers. Having accepted the 
plans, they assume responsibility for their acceptance. Hav- 
ing rejected the plans, the executive who has prepared and 
submitted the plans then has the right to veto the mandate 
of the legislature, which comes to him in the form of an 
appropriation bill. In case his veto is overruled, then he 
has the right to refuse to execute that mandate and go back 
to the people with the issue. In the State of New Hamp- 
shire and in some other states, he may prorogue the legislature 
to get the issue before the people. Where there is no power 
of prorogation, the question goes over till the next legisla- 
ture, unless the people have a recall or some other method 
of holding officers to responsibility. 

As an instrument of precision the budget has not been 
properly used. Both governing agents and the people have 
been without a conscious program of government. Esti- 
mates required by law are submitted as a mass of technical 
detail; they are not prepared in such manner that they 
may be classified and summarized; they are not presented 
in the form of a program or prospectus which may be 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 32 1 

seen in perspective and understood by the layman, or even 
by a large majority of the officers themselves. The result is 
that management is necessarily unscientific and disappoint- 
ing; work is authorized by the legislature, organization is 
provided for work and funds are voted in response to per- 
sonal pressure and expressions of local interest; welfare 
questions are settled without regard to the consideration of 
public policy, and in such manner that they may not be 
publicly discussed; laws are made, appropriations are passed 
and conditions attached to authorizations to spend, on pri- 
vate understandings and by a scheme of legislative "log- 
rolling." 

Instruments of Precision for Use of Executive Officers. As 
has been suggested, the budget is an instrument of precision 
for use in legislative " planning," — a prospectus of busi- 
ness. The estimate is designed for the purpose of out- 
lining a definite administrative proposal as a basis for 
action. The act of appropriation is in the nature of a man- 
date of the policy-determining branch. This instrument 
has been devised by representatives of the people, in conflict 
with those who represented organized and incorporated privi- 
lege under a regime of monarchy. The budget is seldom used 
in the management of private business. The other instru- 
ments of precision to which attention is asked are primarily 
for the information of those who are charged with "executing 
plans." They have been designed and developed in their 
best form by managers of private enterprises. 

The balance sheet is an instrument to be used by one who, 
though accountable for every act of subordinates, as for a 
trust, is far removed from the varied activities and details 
which make up the business that he dominates; it is an 
instrument by means of which the manager responsible for 
the execution of the plans and policies of the corporation may 
have his attention directed to subjects of immediate adminis- 
trative concern. As an instrument of precision it is quite as 
available and quite as useful to a state or municipal officer 
as to the head of a private corporation. To the manager it 



322 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

serves the same purpose as the contour map and chart of 
movements to the military leader; by this means the officer 
is able to watch in perspective the varied activities around 
him; to give direction and to relate this perspective to the 
conditions surrounding and results following each movement; 
in short, the purpose of the balance sheet is to serve the 
manager as an instrument for determining at all times both 
present condition and net result, — to give to him a sense of 
proportion and relation that he can gain in no other way. 

As an instrument of precision for reflecting present financial 
conditions, the balance sheet is adapted to giving not only 
the relation of resources to liabilities and surplus to deficit, 
but also to reflecting present conditions of appropriations and 
other authorizations to incur liabilities and to spend. By 
the use of a balance sheet, the officer may have prompt, 
complete and accurate information needed for thinking about 
every financial relation within his control. 

Notwithstanding the general use of the balance sheet by 
officers of private corporations, it is seldom employed by offi- 
cers of states and municipalities. In not being provided with 
such an instrument, they are seriously handicapped by a lack of 
means to obtain prompt, accurate and complete information. 
The state or municipality is made less efficient as an agency 
of welfare, the people are without the data needed for the 
consideration of matters of serious importance pertaining to 
business in hand and legislators are without the information 
necessary to the consideration of future plans. 

Another important instrument of business precision which 
has been developed by private experience and which is avail- 
able to the managers of state institutions is the operation 
account. This is a form of statement showing on the one 
side the cost incurred in conducting each branch of business, 
and on the other side the income accrued to meet this cost. 
The operation account was devised because of the inaccuracy 
and incompleteness of statements of cash receipts and cash 
disbursements. Costs may be incurred which have not yet 
been paid; income may be accrued which has not yet been 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 323 

collected; payments may be made in advance; revenues 
may be prepaid; and in the cash there may be receipts and 
payments that have nothing to do with either expenditure 
or income. 

The inaccuracies and incompleteness of the data pertain- 
ing to the relation of cost to income, when taken from accounts 
showing transactions in cash, are even more striking in state 
and municipal business: taxes may not be collected for many 
years; the expenses may be largely paid out of borrowings; 
the revenues accrued are usually collectable, but if not col- 
lected, accounts and reports which are based on receipts may 
lead officers far afield, i.e., may be the cause of reaching 
unsound and dangerous conclusions. Notwithstanding this 
fact, few public corporations have provided their officers with 
such an instrument of precision. Government managers are 
supposed to think, act and direct with judgment, without 
exact knowledge of the relation between cost of operation 
and income to meet this cost. 

Much has been said of late about the need for increased 
economy and efficiency in the management of public affairs. 
Generally speaking, the officer is charged with any action 
taken which may result in waste, whether this be from the 
character of purchases made, or the character of work per- 
formed. Few have asked themselves the question whether 
the officer is adequately equipped with instruments of pre- 
cision for determining and having regularly brought to his 
attention evidence of waste and inefficiency. 

Generally speaking, a person who enjoys the confidence and 
respect of his fellows, who has attained marked success in the 
management of private affairs, when elected to office finds 
himself without the means of knowing what is being bought; 
what price is being paid; whether the thing purchased is 
adapted to use; whether things purchased and paid for are 
actually delivered ; whether the things delivered are used and 
properly accounted for; whether employees are efficient or 
inefficient, faithful or faithless; what is the cost of any 
product or job; and what is the relation of cost to result. 



324 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

I think Governor Bass will agree with me in the statement 
that, when a new executive first sits down in front of the official 
desk, he finds the same stream of business flowing over his 
desk the first day he enters office that flowed over it the day 
before his predecessor left office. In taking office he usually 
takes up a new business. He has been chosen to office 
because the people believe in him, but it is not assumed that 
he has any knowledge of the business to which he has been 
elected or for which he is responsible. With this stream of 
business demanding immediate attention and concerning 
which he knows nothing, he must sign and sign; the official 
signature must be attached hour after hour, day after day 
and month after month, or business will stop; he must sign, 
relying either on the verbal statements or perhaps on the 
initial of some one in the office who says, "It's all right, 
Governor; it's all right. Please sign here." 

In this situation he is asked each day to make decisions, 
give orders, execute contracts, sign vouchers for the expendi- 
ture of public moneys, release fidelity and surety bonds, — 
to do all these things on the verbal statements or initials of 
subordinates, without the means of obtaining the data neces- 
sary to the location of responsibility for misstatements of 
fact or for the administration of discipline. On the other 
hand, subordinates are without the protection of a record 
earned. The whole plan of business organization and method 
is on a plane of personal relation and ignorance, instead of 
on the plane of a system of merit and intelligence. 

In conclusion it may be said that both governing agents 
and citizens, electors and non-electors, are without any con- 
scious constructive program of government. Though an 
electorate has been created to enforce responsibility, it is 
without facts; the people cannot hold legislators respon- 
sible for failure properly to represent the people; legislators, 
responsible for determining questions of policy and voting 
funds, are both without a well-defined plan or program to 
consider, and without the information necessary to the con- 
sideration of questions of policy; the officers responsible for 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 325 

the execution of policies and mandates of the legislature, 
under acts of appropriation, are without the proper instru- 
ments of precision for obtaining prompt, complete and accurate 
information about the business in hand. Under such cir- 
cumstances, it goes without saying that the affairs of the 
government cannot be scientifically managed, — that is, under 
present conditions public business, whether national, state or 
municipal, cannot be intelligently directed and controlled. 

Generally speaking, the budget should raise every question 
of policy pertaining to decisions as to what should be done, 
what organization should be provided for doing the thing 
which is decided on and what character of expenditure should 
be financed. So far as I know, there is not a state in the 
United States that gets before the legislature through its 
experts, i.e., through the administration, the information 
necessary to the consideration of any of these questions. 
Suppose that the subject be one of public health. What 
information has the legislature on which to decide questions 
of policy? In order to determine what plan should be made 
with respect to public health, they should know not only what 
is being done at the present time by the state, by the munici- 
pality, by the federal government in matters of health, but 
they should know also the needs of the people with respect 
to health. They should know what part of that need is being 
met and what part is not being met. Questions of policing, 
questions of sewage, questions of transportation, of housing, 
of what not, must be approached in the same manner. The 
fact is that the legislator, not being able to see the problem 
which is presented, cannot think of it properly in terms of 
work to be done, what organization should be provided, and 
what character of expenditure should be made; he cannot 
determine what amount is needed for current expenses or for 
fixed charges or for capital outlays. There are very few of 
our public corporations that have even a list of their proper- 
ties, to say nothing of information concerning what is needed 
to serve the public in matters of health, or education, or any 
other subject of public interest. There are some of our 



326 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

public corporations which have been so ignorant of what they 
owned that they have bid in their own property at a tax sale. 
Others have bought sites for schoolhouses in the same block 
in which some other department had property which had 
been lying idle for twenty years. When public business is run 
on such a plane as this, and when the legislator does not have 
presented to him the facts necessary to a proper consideration 
of a subject, we cannot expect intelligent action on the part of 
the legislator, nor can we hold him responsible for failure to 
act intelligently in the discharge of his duties. 

Very few private corporations have undertaken to finance 
a business which places a greater burden of responsibility on 
the management than does the modern public corporation. 
Yet the officers elected to direct and control the business of 
a government are handicapped in a manner which would at 
once mark them for immediate failure as managers of a pri- 
vate corporation. When so inadequately provided with 
instruments, what is more natural than that those, who by 
reason of their previous successes, have been honored by 
electors with positions of public trust, should retire dis- 
credited; and under such circumstances, what else is to be 
expected than that voters who have elected men to office, 
finding them discredited, should turn to others who make 
new promises, — and who, when elected, themselves become 
quite as helpless as their predecessors? With rare exceptions, 
election to public office has been a sentence to political death. 
In each case, the man of good motive who has gone out 
of office discredited, has been the victim of institutional 
methods which spell inefficiency. Not only as officers, there- 
fore, but also as citizens, are we all interested in placing in 
the hands of public officials such instruments of precision as 
will enable them to have the same basis for intelligent direc- 
tion and control, the same means of protecting responsibility 
and for "making good" for the benefit of the public, as 
have been made available to him when working for the 
benefit of private stockholders. 

The Causes of Popular Despondency. Notwithstanding this 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 327 

splendid plan for making government management intelligent 
and for making governing agents responsible and responsive, 
the American commonwealth has suffered more from igno- 
rance, irresponsiveness and irresponsibility during the last 
half-century, than have many of the monarchies of Europe. 
Furthermore, the welfare of the people has not been carefully 
guarded, the entrusted estate has been wasted, the activities 
of the government have been inefficiently managed and 
powers of government have been systematically prostituted 
to private and partizan ends. 

I will not attempt to enumerate all of the causes, but may 
I not suggest that one of the conditions giving rise to popular 
disappointment has been lack of exact knowledge, — to put 
it baldly, has been both popular and official ignorance? Since 
neither the people in their capacity of sovereign or in their 
capacity as beneficiary, nor their official agents in the capacity 
of trustees, have worked out any well-considered plan of busi- 
ness, our people have had no sovereign will to be expressed; 
the electorate has not and cannot record opinion; our institu- 
tions, national and state, have been running a fortuitous 
course in the dark, directed by officers without a compass 
and without a sailing chart. 

Under a plan of political organization which rests on citizen 
sovereignty; which takes its managers (both those who 
"plan" and those who "execute plans") periodically from the 
rank and file of the people; in which the legislature must 
depend on expressions of popular will for support to policies 
determined, and executives must depend for success on support 
which comes from the people through an electorate; the 
information on which judgment and action are based must 
reach through the officer to the people, for whose benefit 
institutions are organized and maintained. 

And until the instruments of precision which are available 
for this purpose are properly used, let us not speak disrespect- 
fully of the "political boss." Under present conditions the 
"boss" is the most scientific citizen that we have. In the 
large cities, the "political boss" is the only one who in any 



328 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

manner represents organized citizenship. True, his guiding 
motives may not be public welfare, but until the present 
at least, "the boss" has had a clearer concept of the essential 
factors of democracy than has "the reformer." He has the 
astuteness to see the need for keeping himself informed con- 
cerning community wants; he is the only one who has made 
it his business to supply community needs; he is the only 
one who has had a definite, and at times, comprehensive 
citizen program. He makes provisions for systematic contact 
with citizen activities, citizen opinion, citizen interest and 
citizen needs, in order that he may have the information 
necessary to win suffrages of a less well-informed electorate, 
that he may obtain for himself and for his organization 
patronage through which to gain the contact needed for the 
exercise of the powers which will permit the use of funds and 
properties entrusted to officers of governments, and to avail 
of these for partizan and personal ends. 

"The boss" makes citizenship his business. The men and 
women whose interests are to be served have not as yet 
recognized the need for a definite plan or program to be 
executed; they have not demanded, nor has the legislature 
as their representatives provided, the means whereby those 
who execute may cooperate under scientific management in 
executing a plan or program. The business of citizens, as 
citizens, has not been seriously and intelligently undertaken, 
and the powers of the electorate have not been intelligently 
and effectively used to support those in office who are inter- 
ested in the honest, efficient and economic management of 
public affairs. Officers have undertaken to discharge their 
duties under a handicap that makes the highest success 
impossible. So long as this condition obtains, the best solu- 
tion that democracy can offer state and municipal govern- 
ment is domination by "the boss." Under present conditions 
it must be conceded that popular sovereignty has been a 
vicarious reign — an idealistic dream; that "boss rule" has 
been the reality; that our popular sovereign is still in infancy; 
that our state regent is the "political boss "; that the differ- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 329 

ence in principle between North American democracy and 
Spanish American democracy has been that in Spanish 
America the "political boss" has established his office in the 
state-house or in the town hall, while in the United States a 
willing or unwilling tool of " the boss," receiving the suffrages 
of an ignorant electorate, has given the stamp of approval 
to official acts, — the real business of the government being 
done in a private office outside of the state-house or town 
hall. 

Gov. Bass: This will close our session this evening unless 
there are questions which you care to ask of Dr. Cleveland. 
He has kindly offered to answer any questions which you may 
have to put. 

Question: I should like to ask him what we are going 
to do about it? 

Mr. Cleveland: It occurs to me that, notwithstanding 
all of the discouragement that has been expressed about the 
manner in which our government affairs have been conducted, 
we can look forward with a great deal of confidence to the 
future. In the first place, citizenship has been aroused. The 
first one hundred years of experience in the United States 
was one which caused the citizen to think of the government 
as an institution that had been organized and maintained for 
the purpose of giving him something of money value. The 
government had inherited from England a continent of nat- 
ural resources. In the minds of the people the government 
existed primarily to distribute public lands, to give away 
farms, to give away mines, to give away corporate privi- 
leges. All of the interests which dominated our political 
society were organized on the theory of getting something 
out of the government for little or nothing, — something which 
would contribute to private gain. The organization of cor- 
porations to obtain subsidies and privileges, the formation of 
political parties for spoils and private appeals for personal 
advantage to be obtained through "pull" were simply ways 
of getting it. At the present time citizenship in the United 
States has begun to take a new view of the situation. Amer- 



330 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

ican citizenship has awakened to the fact that there are few 
of these large and valuable Christmas presents to be handed 
out each year. Our public lands have become private lands. 
Our people are now going to Canada for free homesteads, 
preemption rights and so on. They used to go to Canada 
for other reasons. Public franchises have largely been con- 
verted into private proprietorships. As a people, we have 
suddenly awakened to the thought that this splendid indiffer- 
ence to the value of our national inheritance as a public re- 
source has been a mistake; that private ownership in many 
instances means monopoly, — we call it vicious monopoly 
when some one person or corporation owns more than is ordi- 
narily held or owned by a single man. I do not mean to sug- 
gest that there is anything in private ownership to be feared, 
but there has been something in the attitude of the public 
mind which necessarily must change. Now that all of the 
things that the government can give away have been exhausted, 
we have suddenly awakened to the fact that 99 per cent of 
us need protection against the other 1 per cent; that the gov- 
ernment is the only organization capable of affording the 
protection needed without a popular uprising which would 
disturb all of the conditions essential to social progress and 
cooperative activity. We are beginning to appreciate what a 
welfare institution means and what its functions should be. 
We are beginning to see that the government has some pur- 
pose, and that laissez faire should no longer dominate our 
politics. With this situation present, with public opinion 
suddenly converted to the notion that the government 
should do something instead of doing nothing (except give 
away property) ; with the assembling of vast populations in 
centers where the individual, from his relative impotence, 
becomes the victim of social neglect unless the government 
steps in to protect him; with an environment which makes 
the individual the easy victim of contagious and communi- 
cable diseases, of accidents and other disasters incident to 
living in crowded centers; the American people have begun to 
see that their government is the one institution on which they 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 33 1 

must rely. This idea being paramount in the minds of the 
people, every party — we may say it is a non-partizan notion 
— demands of the government efficiency; demands economy 
that will not permit of the waste of public funds entrusted 
to officers for your protection and for mine; demands that 
proper use be made of the properties and equipment which 
have been procured with public funds for the purpose of con- 
serving health or for promoting education, the maintenance 
of law and order, for providing people with transportation 
and other facilities essential to the common welfare. With 
this idea paramount in the minds of the people, it seems to 
me that we have an outlook quite different from any which 
we have had before, and that this outlook is in the direction 
of the interests which we may call general welfare as dis- 
tinct from those interests which are private or personal in 
character. 

What are we going to do about it? We are going to use 
the instruments which have been found useful in private 
business for accomplishing these ends. We are not only 
going to plan the work of the institution in relation to the 
society which it serves, but we are also going to plan each 
step in the execution of the plan. In other words, we shall 
have a planning executive as well as a planning legislature, 
and we shall have an intelligent executive as well as an intelli- 
gent legislature, because the government will be premised on 
the planning of an intelligent people. That is what I think 
we must look forward to, and may look forward to with 
confidence. In planning our scheme of government, we must 
think, not of the state of New Hampshire, or of the village of 
Hanover, because the governing of the citizen of Hanover is 
the governing of this town plus that of the state, plus that of 
the United States. Our plan of business is a threefold, cor- 
porate plan; at least threefold, — sometimes twentyfold; each 
one of these corporations having been organized to take a part 
in the business which we consider essential for our welfare. 
In considering, therefore, our plans and policies, we must 
necessarily know what the government of the United States 



332 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

is doing for the citizen of Hanover, what the state of New 
Hampshire is doing for the citizen of Hanover, in order to 
decide what the precinct commissioners should do for the 
citizen of Hanover. We must not only see our public business 
as a comprehensive scheme, but we must have the means of 
knowing what is being done, and to an extent what has been 
done. In other words, it is the same problem as is before 
the stockholder of the corporation, who a few years ago 
awakened to the fact that he had interests to protect. We 
have had the various investigations looking towards better 
administration of life insurance, better administration of rail- 
roads, better administration of banks, better administration 
of every kind of quasi-public corporation as well as private 
corporation. We shall simply have to apply the same prin- 
ciples to our public corporation that we have applied to our 
quasi-public and private enterprises. 

Question: I should like to ask Dr. Cleveland what steps 
should be taken to put this information in the hands of the 
executives and the people; whether these steps should be 
taken by the citizens or by those elected to office? 

Mr. Cleveland: It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that 
primarily those who are in position to develop information 
are those who have the instruments for collecting, recording, 
summarizing and reporting information; in other words, 
the instruments of accounting which bring together facts, 
coordinate facts and present facts in such form that their 
significance can be understood. Perhaps the questioner has 
in mind some of those enterprises with which I have been 
associated during the last few years. During the last few 
years I have been closely associated with a number of citizen 
organizations. And I speak of this simply to illustrate a 
point which the questioner evidently had in mind — what 
can the citizen do? In organizing the Bureau of Municipal 
Research in New York and also that in Philadelphia, these 
two agencies being supported by private funds, the theory 
was this : that the existing agencies of citizenship (and there 
are many of them, — some 2,000 of various kinds in Philadel- 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 333 

phia alone) have not been developed for the primary purpose 
of making the citizen more effective in his relation to the 
government. The fact is that nearly every other kind of 
public interest has been made the subject of organization, 
but that practically all of the activities of the government as 
such have been left out of consideration. In other words, 
each of these societies has a highly specialized theme, such as 
the administration of private charity, the promotion of edu- 
cation and morals, the welfare of immigrants, etc. Each of 
these is interested incidentally in what the government is 
doing with respect to its particular cause, but not to the extent 
of finding out what are the methods and processes employed, 
and whether the service might do it more economically and 
efficiently. 

Certain clubs have been organized, called city clubs, which 
have a broad outlook. Each has attempted to consider the 
work of its city as a whole, each has organized many com- 
mittees for the consideration of special subjects, but not one 
of these organizations, so far as I am aware, has ever organ- 
ized or provided itself with the means for obtaining infor- 
mation about technical processes. Those of you who are 
engaged in business know that exact knowledge of details is 
the only safe basis for judgment. Notwithstanding the fact 
that our public corporations have the most involved, complex 
and technical business problems which may be found, citizens 
have assumed that they could get together and by the ex- 
change of opinions about the duties of citizenship and other 
subjects which are highly theoretical and philosophical, — 
that by some such methods the problem of community busi- 
ness may be solved. The action and attitude of the average 
city club is about as helpful to the officer who is charged with 
responsibility for the management of the city as would be a 
meeting of citizens who would come together at a dinner and 
pass resolutions concerning the management of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad. In the very nature of things, those who 
participate in such touch-and-go proceedings cannot have 
knowledge about the management of a city or of a railroad; 



334 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

neither can citizens who get together and pass resolutions 
about the government take up any matter intelligently, unless 
they have provided themselves with some agency by means 
of which the technical problem may be studied. 

Having participated in the work of many such committees, 
having become conscious of the ignorance with which subjects 
of public concern are approached and having come to know 
the damage which is often done to a good cause by unintelli- 
gent citizen action; the conclusion was reached by a few men 
in New York that citizenship could not hope to become effect- 
ive in the exercise of its sovereign powers until citizen duty 
and governmental responsibility should become subjects of 
inquiry; until organized means should be provided for know- 
ing definitely what are the needs of the community which 
should be served by the government; what the government 
is doing to meet these ends; what is its organization; what the 
conditions surrounding its personnel; what the technical proc- 
esses employed; what the results being obtained. In other 
words, it was thought that as a matter of duty, citizenship 
should provide for itself the same kind of an organization for 
house-cleaning as did the life insurance companies at the 
time they were under legislative investigation. 

Every citizen of the United States has a right of access to 
public records. Every citizen, therefore, has a right to in- 
form himself and to use the information obtained from rec- 
ords for the information of his fellows. But the trouble is 
this : that even though a particular citizen has free access and 
gives all of his time to the consideration of questions of citizen 
duty, the government is so highly complex in organization and 
technical in requirements that he will do well if he comes to 
understand one of its problems in such manner that he can 
think about it with intelligence. This is a condition which 
must be faced. If citizenship is to be effective, citizens must use 
their power of independent inquiry; but they must organize 
for using it. It has been upon such a theory that bureaus of 
municipal research have been organized and supported. The 
fundamental or charter rights of such organizations are: 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 335 

i. The right of access to such records. 

2. The right of free speech and free press. 

3. The duty which a citizen organization has to support 
the hands of the officer, — to stand back of the man who 
wishes to do what is right, and in front of the man who wishes 
to do what is wrong. 

The government agent should be called upon to produce 
such information as may be currently or regularly reported. 
He should be called upon to furnish this not only to the exec- 
utive officer and to the legislature, but also to the citizen; 
the administration should be called upon to lay before the 
legislature and the people a definite program to be financed, 
and the legislature should be held responsible for the way in 
which it acts on such a program. This information should 
be supplemented by statements of fact showing records of 
performance and results which may be appraised in terms of 
standards based on concepts of welfare. Alongside of an 
official agency should be an agency of citizenship which will 
be equipped for going into each technical subject concerning 
which detail data may be desired, and which will enable the 
citizen body, without partizan cant or the warp of private 
interest, to sit in judgment on the acts of their trustees who 
have been appointed or elected to places of official responsi- 
bility. This to my mind is the answer to the question, 
"What steps should be taken to put information into the 
hands of executives and into the hands of the people? " 



§>fct& Session 

SATURDAY FORENOON, OCTOBER 
THE FOURTEENTH 

Chairman, MORRIS LLEWELLYN COOKE 

Consulting Engineer, Philadelphia 



PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT: 
A SYMPOSIUM 

Chairman, MORRIS LLEWELLYN COOKE 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

THE idea back of this meeting is to make it a series 
of practical illustrations of the application of Scien- 
tific Management, rather than a theoretical discussion. 
For this session several speakers have been asked to speak 
from ten to fifteen minutes on some one problem each has 
encountered in his practice; to state the problem and show 
the way it was worked out. In other words, what we are to 
hear this morning is research work that has shown results. 
This is an experience meeting. 

I will call first on Mr. H. K. Hathaway, the vice-president 
of the Tabor Manufacturing Company, Philadelphia, a con- 
sulting engineer, and one of Mr. Taylor's closest associates. 

Mr. Hathaway: At the Tabor Manufacturing Company 
we have succeeded through the application of the Taylor 
principles of Scientific Management in increasing our produc- 
tion to about three times what it formerly was, with the total 
cost approximately the same and approximately the same 
total of men; of course with a very much smaller proportion 
of the men in the shop, and a much increased proportion 
of men in the planning department, or on the management 
side. When I first went there we had one superintendent 
who had a foreman in the shop, and I think there were two 
clerks. At that time there were about 125 workmen. Now, 
in normally busy times, we have something like twenty-five 
functional foremen and clerks in the planning department; 

339 



340 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

what might be called "non-producers," if that name were 
still in vogue, — Mr. Barth forbade us all yesterday ever to 
use it again. In the shop we have probably about seventy 
or seventy-five workmen actually doing the work, yet we are 
turning out about three times the total product we formerly 
did, measured in dollars and cents. That has been made 
possible, not by a few large savings, but by innumerable 
small savings in time. 

About the most remarkable single case that I know of is 
on the assembling floor. In the assembling department of 
the Tabor plant, at the time we started to install the system, 
we had eleven, men acting as erectors, putting up machinery, 
and they assembled about nineteen machines a month on an 
average. Now we have six men, and they assemble between 
sixty and seventy machines per month. 

It might be interesting to know to what that is due. 
Under the old scheme, the assemblers were assigned their 
jobs by the foreman. An assembler would come up to the 
foreman and want to know what he should do, and the fore- 
man, after looking around, would decide that he might as 
well start assembling a machine, or a lot of machines. Ap- 
parently the materials were all on hand. There were at least 
enough of the larger parts so that it looked as if he had enough 
to start on. The man would start to assemble the machines. 
He would progress to a certain point and find some small part 
missing without which he could not proceed with his work. 
That, of course, would necessitate his hunting around to find 
where that part was. In a good many cases he would wait. 
He would go to the machine-shop and inquire from one man 
to another until he finally found whether it had been made or 
not. If it hadn't been made, he frequently would wait until 
it was, keeping out of the way of the boss until he could pro- 
ceed with his work. So about as much time was spent, under 
the old scheme, in hunting up the materials and waiting for 
materials, as there was in actually doing the work. Another 
source of delay at that time was that a man would start to 
assemble certain parts, put them together, and find that 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 341 

they wouldn't go together. That would necessitate his chip- 
ping, filing and scraping, until he finally could make them go 
together; in other words, correcting errors of the drafting 
department and of the machine-shop. Such conditions do 
not exist under the new scheme. A man is never started 
doing assembling work until we are sure he has all of the 
materials on hand which are required to complete the assem- 
bling operations assigned to him. The parts, as they are deliv- 
ered from the machine-shop, are placed in certain racks or 
bins. The parts from the stores are delivered at the proper 
time, and when all of the parts which enter into a certain 
group of the machine, or the entire machine if it is a simple 
one, are ready, we issue an order for one of the assembling 
men to perform certain specific operations. In that way, we 
eliminate the time wasted in hunting around for material for 
the job. We get away from the chipping and fitting and 
filing, formerly necessary to make things go together, through 
an adequate scheme of inspection. There is no question in 
the mind of the man doing the machine-work what the 
requirements are. As soon as the job is on the machine the 
inspector goes there and instructs the man as to the degree 
of accuracy required, the kind of finish and any other 
matters pertaining to the quality. 

When the job has been finished, the inspector goes there 
again and inspects every piece in the lot, with respect to that 
operation, to see that no errors have been made. If there 
have been, they are at once reported and corrected, before 
the material arrives on the assembling floor. Formerly, 
they were not corrected, and were not discovered until the 
material arrived on the assembling floor. It is the case in 
many shops today, even comparatively well-run shops, that 
errors are not discovered until the material has reached the 
point where it is to be used. By eliminating those two 
sources of trouble, and by doing certain things to assist the 
workman, such as having the materials placed on his bench, 
or on the floor for him in advance, and having his drawings 
and his instructions delivered to him in advance, we have 



342" TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

been able to increase the output of the assemblers from less 
than two machines per man per month to nine machines per 
man per month. That is probably, as I say, the most re- 
markable thing in the Tabor Company. However, there are 
various places throughout the shop, in the machine-shop for 
instance, where a man is producing from his machine as high 
as five times the amount of work that he formerly produced, 
and without any greater effort. The selection of the man for 
the job has also resulted in considerable savings, and has 
contributed to the results achieved in the instance I have 
been citing. 

Another thing I might mention. We have a certain 
machine which we build in considerable quantities. It is 
one of the few jobs we have that we call a "standard job," 
something that we are manufacturing continuously; and of 
the main casting, which we call the base casting of these 
machines, in our shop the boring-mill man turns out ten per 
day. About a year ago we fell behind our orders on that 
particular type of machine, and it was necessary that we 
do something to get ahead; something more than we 
could possibly do in our own shop. So we got two or three 
outside shops to estimate on boring a lot of those bases for 
us. The prices quoted were prohibitive. What was more 
important than that, the best we could get any outside 
shop to agree to do was to finish two of those bases per 
day. In our shop, a man finishes ten per day. Well, two 
per day wouldn't help us at all; would not bring them fast 
enough. So we finally got hold of one of the parties who 
quoted on making them, a personal friend of mine, and I 
asked him if he would allow us to use the boring-mill he had 
in his shop, sending our own men to operate it and our own 
tools, and he agreed to that. The machine which he had 
was an old machine, rather light, and had only one head that 
could be used. The machine we were doing them on, turn- 
ing out ten per day, was a heavier machine, having two heads 
that could be used together. However, we sent our man 
over to their shop. He was a man at that time acting as an 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 343 

inspector, but who had formerly run the boring-mill in our 
shop. He was thoroughly familiar with the job. We sent 
him over to their shop, and he spent about eight hours, as 
he expressed it, "digging the machine out of the dirt"; 
cleaning it up, and getting it in shape so that it worked 
properly; seeing that the slides worked freely, and so on. He 
took his own supply of bolts, clamps, cutting tools and every- 
thing needed to get his job set up and started on the ma- 
chine. The first thing he found was that the belt was loose. 
He had "suspected it was, but he found as soon as he put the 
work on, that it was very much looser than he thought. So 
he took his hammer and chisel and cut four inches out of the 
belt before starting to do his job. To make a long story 
short, that workman went into the shop of my friend and 
standardized conditions as far as that particular machine 
was concerned. It is exactly what we do for an entire shop, 
where we are installing the Taylor system. This workman 
went through and standardized the conditions, as far as it 
was possible for him to do so, at that particular machine. 
The result was that he succeeded in turning out eight of those 
castings per day, on an inferior machine, in another shop, 
where the best that the parties were willing to do, or would 
undertake to do, was to turn out two per day. The people 
in the shop where this was done were simply amazed to see 
the work being turned out so rapidly. 

There are innumerable instances of that sort which might 
be cited, but they are so very numerous that it is hard to 
pick out single cases. I think possibly those two cases are 
enough. 

The Chairman: There are three different kinds of time- 
study; fake time-study, the kind that ordinary mortals make, 
and the kind that Mr. Sanford E. Thompson makes. When- 
ever any of us has a really fine piece of work in time-study 
to do, he always tries to get Mr. Thompson to do it. Mr. 
Thompson is one of those men who can cover a good deal of 
ground, and he doesn't confine himself to making time- 
studies. I think he is going to tell us this morning some- 



344 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

thing about the application of the scientific method of routing 
in building construction. Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. Thompson: As our Chairman has said, one of the 
matters which I have been interested in lately is the organiza- 
tion of construction work. The construction man will tell 
you that Scientific Management is all right in the shop, but 
it does not apply in the field. He will say that in the shop 
there is regular help which stays from year to year; there are 
machines which can be standardized; there are routes which 
can be fixed and kept; there are the same operations over 
and over again. The contractor will say that on two jobs 
he has scarcely ever the same workmen; that the condi- 
tions of two jobs are never alike; that the weather conditions 
affect the work; and that there are a great many other vari- 
ables which so change conditions that it is absolutely impossi- 
ble to systematize. I know that most of the men before me 
are interested in manufacturing, but instead of taking up 
the application of time-study in manufacturing, to which Mr. 
Cooke has referred, I want to illustrate how completely the 
fundamental principles of Scientific Management, so far as 
I have gone with them, apply to work of widely different 
types: and not merely the principles, but the methods and 
the apparatus. One of the most poorly organized classes 
of work in construction is the building of reinforced concrete 
buildings. I think there is not any kind of construction 
work where more money is lost by inexperienced contractors. 
It requires long experience for a contractor to learn how to 
estimate the cost of a concrete building and then keep within 
his estimate. One of the parts of the construction of reinforced 
concrete buildings which is especially unsystematized is the 
building of the forms. As you know, before a concrete 
building is started, — that is, before the concrete is put 
in — wooden forms or molds the shape of the columns, or 
of the beams, or of the slabs, have to be made, into which 
the concrete in an almost liquid condition can be poured, to 
take the shape of the finished building. These wooden 
forms are made up by carpenters. They are made up in 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 345 

sections; the side of a column, the side of a beam, the 
bottom of the beam, and so on. The carpenters work on 
benches in making up these sections. The ordinary method 
of form construction, unsystematized as Mr. Kendall would 
call it, consists in ordering enough lumber for the job in 
random lengths and random widths and piling it in the yard 
wherever there happens to be a good place for it. Then 
the foreman takes the general plan of the buildings, — not 
the form plan, he doesn't have any form plan — he takes the 
general plan of the building, and ascertains the length of the 
beams between the supports, and the height of the columns 
from floor to floor, and he figures out the length and the 
width that the forms should be. Then he takes a carpenter, 
and he tells him, "Now, I want you to make twenty-five like 
this," and he lays it out in a way on his bench, so that the 
carpenter will make them up right. The carpenter goes to 
the pile of lumber that happens to be the nearest, and selects 
material from that pile. Sometimes for the same form he 
may have three eight-inch boards, sometimes four sixes, or 
whatever happens to come to his hand, and he takes them, 
puts them on the bench and makes up his forms. 

Now suppose we take the new plan, approximating to the 
conditions one would have under Scientific Management in 
a shop. The forms are sketched out in the drafting room; 
sketches are made for every form, showing the pieces of lumber 
that go in that form. Then the lumber is ordered in lengths 
and widths which correspond most nearly to the sizes. It is 
impracticable, usually, to order the exact widths and lengths, 
on account of sawmill conditions. When this lumber comes 
it is piled in a definite place, and according to width and 
length. With bulletin boards, just like the bulletin boards 
in the shop, we have move-orders — little slips — to move the 
lumber from the piles to the job sawmill. They are like 
the time-cards which are used in the shop. A duplicate of 
this move-order goes to the sawmill man, and he saws the 
lumber. Then another set of orders, a move-order and a 
make-up order as we might call it, is issued, and the lumber 



346 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

is moved by laborers (carpenters don't carry the lumber 
now) to the place where the carpenters are to make up the 
forms on the bench. All the carpenters then have to do is 
to take these sketches and make one form after another, 
according to the directions given them. These directions 
are based on time-studies, — I cannot get away without some 
remarks on time-study, although I am not going into it very 
deeply. The time-studies for the task-work on the forms are 
made on just the same general principles as the time-studies 
for the shop, and have the same result in economy. Under 
ordinary conditions of form construction for concrete work, 
a contractor has to guess how many carpenters and how 
much time it will take to make the forms for a particular job. 
The forms for no two jobs are the same, and the records of 
the construction of forms for one contract do not give exact 
enough information to permit more than a guess concerning 
the construction of forms for another contract. But although 
no two forms are alike, the elementary processes which go 
to make up the construction of a form, — putting a board 
on a bench, laying a cleat on the boards and driving a nail — 
are the same in the construction of all forms; the difference 
is in their combination. Now Scientific Management, in 
this matter of making forms, makes a time-study of the 
operation of laying a board on a bench; another time-study 
of the operation of laying a cleat on the boards; and another 
time-study of the driving of a nail. With that information 
a contractor can determine how long a time and how many 
men it will take to make any number of forms for any job, 
and he can set tasks. Suppose he has an eighteen-foot form 
to make, a size he has never made before. He can tell exactly 
how long it will take. He knows how many boards are to 
be laid on the bench and how long it takes to lay each there; 
how many cleats to lay on the boards and how long to place 
each one; how many nails to drive and how long to drive 
each. This presupposes, of course, that boards, cleats and 
nails are piled in a given place and are of the proper size, 
and of this Scientific Management takes care. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 347 

In the routing of this material, I have spoken of the irregu- 
lar work that is usually done in connection with form con- 
struction. I have found that the cost in making up forms, 
even without task-work, in some cases has been reduced 
about one-half, simply by planning the work and systema- 
tizing the handling of the materials; doing of laborers' work 
by laborers instead of by carpenters. Of course, there is a 
further reduction in cost with task-work. 

I spoke at the beginning of criticisms made and objections 
raised to Scientific Management in the field. It is almost 
laughable, the way any man who is contemplating Scientific 
Management, or has had it first called to his attention, will 
make the same remark as another man, that "it is applicable 
in your shop, but it cannot be done in my shop, because 
my conditions are entirely different, and too intricate." Of 
course, the answer is that Scientific Management has been and 
is being introduced in a variety of shops, in cotton-mills, in 
dye-works, in machine-shops, in pulp-mills, and so on. Take 
the machine-shop conditions, for example, and take the out- 
of-door conditions, and notice that we can use, as I have said, 
the same methods, the same blanks. We use route-sheets, 
just the same as we do in the shop, to lay out the work. We 
were unable on one job to get our route-sheets in time. I 
telephoned over to the Plimpton Press and asked them if they 
would loan us some route-sheets. They did, and we used 
those route-sheets of a printing and binding plant successfully 
in the work of form building. 

The Chairman: I see no reason why anybody in the 
audience who wants to question the speakers should not do 
so. We do not want to spend an undue amount of time on 
that. 

Mr. Webster: I should like to ask Mr. Thompson whether 
it is true that a carpenter, scientific or otherwise, will drive 
nails at the same rate on a long job as on a short job. 

Mr. Thompson: There will be but little difference provided 
each is part of a full day's work. Of course, a single nail 
will take less time in proportion than fifty nails, because of 



348 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

lost time and delays that will occur throughout the day. 
For this reason a percentage must be added even to the aver- 
age times of individual units when combining them. It 
is surprising how uniform the percentage will be. In brick- 
laying, for instance, take the time the average bricklayer 
requires to lay one brick and the time of stretching the line 
and the time he takes to strike off the joint, and you will 
find, when combining these unit average times, that 30 per 
cent must be added to allow for rest and delays. This will 
figure out the same time after time on average work. 

Mr. Webster: You say it takes practically the same time 
for a fourteen-foot board as for a twenty-foot board. Would 
it be the same for a fifty-foot board? 

Mr. Thompson: Different sizes of boards may require dif- 
ferent times, but with the only one variable like that it is a 
simple matter to study a few sizes and then by interpolation 
or by curves to obtain the times on intermediate sizes. For 
example, take the average time for a ten-foot board, a twenty- 
foot board and a thirty-foot board and you can plot a curve 
upon which you can locate the time of any length you have 
to handle. 

Mr. Eaton: This is a matter of vital interest to me. I 
had this little experience. I went to the Jersey City piers 

of the boat and started to measure with a stop-watch 

one of the gangs in the flour pier. On the spur of the bonus 
some did special work and worked harder than others. I had 
one particularly bright Irishman who worked one day at a 
maximum and didn't show up for seven days after. I should 
like to ask how we can find the average skill which permits 
the men to do a maximum amount of work, take their rest 
and do their work again. How would you do it? Should 
we study for one month or for six months? I understand 
from Mr. Taylor's theory that you must find the average at 
which a man can normally and easily work. 

The Chairman: I think, from what I gather by your 
remarks, that the conditions were not properly standardized. 
In other words, you were doing business with human nature 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 349 

rather than with physiological conditions. I happen to 
know that one of the gentlemen who are going to speak will 
give a suggestion which, I think, may satisfy you. I am 
going to call on a man who has been with Scientific Manage- 
ment perhaps as long as anybody, except Mr. Taylor; and I 
always think .of him as representing the best of Scientific 
Management: Mr. Carl G. Barth. 

Mr. Barth: As I understand it, each of us is this morning 
to recite an example of some of the peculiar circumstances 
and difficulties we sometimes meet with in our work of im- 
proving the machinery or other conditions in the industries 
we undertake to systematize. Perhaps one of the most 
important things I personally do in the machine-shops I 
tackle, is the rebuilding of old machines so as to make them 
fit to utilize modern high-speed cutting tools; and I happen 
to think of one instance of this kind which particularly 
gave me a great deal of satisfaction. 

Two ordinary milHng-machines had each been very cleverly 
converted into multiple automatic gear-cutting machines for 
certain special gears, in such a way that six gears were placed, 
in pairs, on each of three dividing spindles, and simultaneously 
cut by each of three cutters mounted on a common arbor; 
and at the time this had been done, these two machines were 
comfortably able to keep up with the rest of the production 
of the shop. However, as the production was materially 
increased some time after I was called into this shop, these 
machines frequently had to be run overtime — they being 
the ones most behind in production. As a consequence, I 
took up the consideration of how this production might be 
increased without the addition of more machines, which was 
just the kind of a problem especially up to me, as I was 
engaged for the purpose of increasing the output of the 
shop as a whole without the addition of new machinery. 

Taking the matter up with the shop superintendent, who 
was personally responsible for these gear-cutting machines 
as they were then running, he at once informed me that 
nothing could be done to further increase their production, 



350 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

as he had already tried everything possible in an effort to 
do so. Yes; he had now in the tool- room six high-speed cut- 
ters, bought from the Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co., which he 
had tried out, and he had found that he could not get more 
out of them than of the carbon cutters, as the machines 
themselves could not "stand" any more than the carbon 
cutters could. 

The minute he expressed himself in this way I knew that 
he had not known how to go about the matter, and insisted 
that we at once demonstrate what those high-speed cutters 
would do on the same material when run on a single pair 
of gears in a large milling-machine of ample stiffness, and pro- 
vided with a number of speed and feed changes. In doing 
this, we ran one of these cutters for several hours at a rate 
fifteen times higher than the rate at which the carbon cutters 
were running in the gear-cutting machines referred to. This 
was an eye-opener to everybody concerned, and it was fully 
agreed that I was right in saying that, unless it were possi- 
ble in some way or other to utilize these high-speed cutters 
on the present gear-cutting machines, they ought to be 
discarded and new, up-to-date machines secured. 

However, I did not hesitate to guarantee to quadruple 
the output of the old machines, which would put them far 
ahead of any possible demand upon them. This at once got 
the superintendent at my ears; for in the first place he did 
not believe I could do it, and secondly, he did not wish to 
see me succeed where he had failed. 

In the meanwhile I had fully realized the reason for his 
failure as soon as I had been shown the high-speed cutters, 
which were of the standard size for that pitch, with only a 
seven-eighths-inch bore. The reason why no more could be 
done with these than with the carbon cutters on the gear-cut- 
ting machines mentioned, was that the limit was the lack of 
stiffness on the part of the long arbor of only seven-eighths- 
inch diameter, and not on the machine itself; though this was 
not as stiff as desirable, and was therefore also readily set into 
vibration by the vibrations and chatter of the flimsy arbor. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 351 

I therefore secured new high-speed cutters with a one-and 
three-fourths-inch bore, and with the key-seat cut in exactly 
the same relation to the teeth on all of them ; and also had a 
suitable arbor made with the three keys for driving the 
cutters, so staggered on the circumference that the teeth of 
the three cutters would not strike the face of the gears at 
the same time in starting in, but would do so in succession. 

I also quadrupled the only feed on one of the machines, 
but left the two speeds — of which one was double the other — 
as they were, with the idea that some experimentation might 
be necessary before we could get the best out of these. 

However, as we found it possible to run on the higher of 
these speeds, whereas before they had been running on the 
lower, and we thus, all told, attained an eight times greater 
rate of cutting than before, with the ability to cut this in 
two if we ever would encounter extra hard castings, I was 
satisfied to leave the speeds as they were. 

The eight times higher rate of cutting, — coupled with the 
time required to take the six finished gears off the machine 
and put on six new blanks — resulted in a new production 
of six gears every thirty minutes, as against the old produc- 
tion of six gears every two hours and thirty minutes, or five 
to one, as against the four to one I had guaranteed to get. 

I look upon this as a good example of what may be done 
by a full analysis of a difficulty encountered, and also of the 
jealousy we sometimes meet with when fearlessly and stead- 
fastly pursuing our work and carrying out our convictions; 
as exposed by what occurred after both machines had for 
several months been turning out gears at the new rate 
whenever they were required to run, though they were now 
necessarily often shut down for lack of work. 

The first batch of extra hard gear-blanks encountered were 
not properly looked after, and as a consequence a set of cut- 
ters was badly burnt before the fact was realized by the rather 
ignorant attendant, and for the rest of this batch the machines 
were put down on the lower speed, — a matter we, as before 
stated, had anticipated might at times be necessary. 



352 



TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



This incident was so perverted, however, in spreading to 
other departments of the large factory, that some jealous 
individual who had evidently all along been watching for an 
opportunity to belittle our work, wrote to the general super- 
intendent informing him that our claim that we were doing 
so much better with our gear-cutting than formerly was all 
idle boast, for he had ascertained that we were doing only 
30 per cent more than formerly, and in so doing used far 
more expensive cutters, and even then had to grind these 
more frequently than the old cutters. 

This led to an investigation and a report by me in which 
all the facts were ascertained and set forth, along with the 
statement that if we ran the machines at all as now refeeded, 
we could not do the machine-work at a lesser rate than four 
times the former rate, and that thus the 30 per cent 
production had absolutely no foundation; while the alleged 
frequent regrinding of the new and more expensive cutters 
was simply the exaggeration of a single incident exceptional 
to a general condition. 

The Chairman: I want to say that when we began this 
morning we decided we would make this simply an experi- 
ence meeting in which each speaker in ten minutes would 
state a problem and the way he had solved it. I want to 
know whether Congressman Redfield won't give us an experi- 
ence of that kind. 

Honorable Mr. Redfield: I do not come here because I 
am a Congressman but in spite of it. I am a manufacturer 
and have been for twenty-six years. I am glad to tell you 
certain actual experiences in the shop along the line of some 
of the ideas suggested here, which we had adopted at our 
shop without knowing they were scientific. That was because 
we didn't know enough. The greatest curse the American 
manufacturer has is knowing his own business. It is a 
disease of the brain. I speak from having sold goods made 
in America in every civilized country in the world, personally, 
and in most uncivilized ones; and I tell you right here, 
gentlemen, there isn't any reason in the world why you can't 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 353 

sell goods in Birmingham, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Tokio or 
anywhere else just as well as you can in New York and New 
England. I have done it. I have been in a Japanese textile 
mill and had the proprietor tell me he used four times as much 
help per yard of cloth as is used in New England. Yet the 
New England mill was way ahead in quality of production, 
but its manager knew his own business and that was the 
trouble. Years ago a very successful partner, an older man 
than I and wiser, laid down this rule to me as his junior — 
I commend it to you — "Every manufacturer should always 
and continuously be his own severest critic. He should 
always be finding fault with himself. He should never be 
satisfied, and he should never let his business get into such 
a condition that any customer can find fault with him. That 
shows he doesn't know his job. At the end of twenty years 
of practice I begin to realize that I know very little about 
this business." Long years ago he said to me, "Redfield, 
you are not in the factory end of this thing, you are in the 
outside end. For that reason please take an hour every day 
and go out into the shop and find all the fault you can." I 
did, and for ten years, gentlemen, I never went into my 
shop without finding something wrong. I lay to that simple 
fact the other fact that from the smallest of eight concerns 
it grew to be the biggest of forty. To the man who says to 
me, "I know my own business," I say in my own mind, 
"God help you." 

Now, gentlemen, I saw the output of the shop doubled 
in three years without adding a man or a machine. I have 
seen the product go from 2,800 per day to 11,000 per day. 
How was it done? In one single way above all, — by the 
constant spirit of dissatisfaction with oneself, by the constant 
determination not to be satisfied, and above all things by 
never thinking, "Now I am right." I have seen in ten years 
the entire reconstruction of the machinery in the plant three 
times; three times the practical scrapping of the whole plant 
as it grew, not in a chunk but in items. I am going into a 
little detail with a drop-hammer. It began with a base which 



354 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

weighed six times the weight of the arm; both were cast iron, 
the uprights were in anthracite cast iron, the bearings were 
babbitted, the shafts were a soft steel forging and the rollers 
were riveted. The arms were iron. At the end of ten years 
that has twice been completely redesigned. The base now 
weighs fifteen times the weight of the arm, the arm has be- 
come a steel forging made in heavy steel and the uprights 
have come to be made of charcoal iron like a car wheel; 
the shaft is an inch and a half in diameter and made of forged 
crucible steel; the bearings have become bronze, and the 
rollers are steel castings with polished surfaces. The guide- 
rods which operate the rollers above are made of hammered 
iron casting, — seven cents a pound in the rough — and 
tipped at the bottom with steel casting, — fifteen cents a 
pound — which an expert blacksmith had learned to weld 
on to that iron. In other words, that machine has been 
refined until the product is three or four times what it was 
before, and what is more important, the element of repairs 
has practically ceased to be. 

Now, another thing we said to our men, "Your piece-rate 
shall never be cut, no matter what you earn." When that 
thing happened (my partner did it), he called the superin- 
tendent upstairs and told him what he was going to do. 
The superintendent said, "Some of these men will earn too 
much; they will earn $7 or $8 a day." "Well," said my 
partner, "is your salary too large?" He said, "That is 
different," and my partner asked, "Why?" And the super- 
intendent withered up and was silent. We agreed that 
obvious mistakes should be corrected, but only by mutual 
consent. We abandoned absolutely the principle that we 
had a moral right to cut a rate which we had made. I tell 
you, gentlemen, if I say nothing else here at all, that to cut 
the piece-work rate because a man is earning a large salary 
is a moral wrong and an economic mistake. From practical 
experience I tell you the labor men are absolutely right in 
regarding such a thing as a curse to them and as a crime 
against the interests of the manufacturer, and yet I have a 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 355 

friend who boasted to me that he cut his piece-work rate five 
times on one single job. I think he should be locked up. 

Our men knew that their piece-work rate would never be 
cut, never so long as we lived, at least, and that whenever a 
machine stopped, it cost them money as well as us. The 
consequence was that the machines didn't stop. The men 
would come in fifteen minutes before the time, to look over 
their machines; look over them, under them, everywhere, 
and if there was the slightest thing wrong they would run 
for the repair man to get that machine going. I won't tell 
you what happened to the repair man, because I don't like 
to tell the number of thousands of dollars that went out from 
day to day. It was far more than the wages, and it had no 
relation to the doubling of the output. Furthermore, when 
the men knew we were dealing with them in that way, they 
began to be willing to remake all the spoiled goods in their 
own time, and finally they paid for the material they used 
in making spoiled goods, voluntarily, and saved more than 
$10,000 per annum. 

A Swedish manufacturer once asked me when I was selling 
goods against him at a place only fourteen miles away from 
his plant in Copenhagen, ''How can you pay so much? We 
pay $2.25, or nine English shillings, and we work fourteen 
hours. What do your men earn?" I replied, "An average 
of $5 and they work nine hours." He asked, "How can you 
do it?" I said, "That is the reason." I am perfectly serious 
about it; that is the reason. I went on to tell him that 
when his men got so efficient and his plant so perfect that 
his men could earn $5 in nine hours, then I would begin 
to be afraid of him, but not until then. I know these 
things are not accepted; some of you gentlemen are saying 
in the corners of your minds, "Not in my business." I 
know that habit perfectly well. I have had 2,000 manufac- 
turers for customers through these years in every country in 
the world. But it is the Lord's truth, and the sooner you 
get to know it, the better for you and yours. There are 
three interests in your factories, — yours, your workmens', 



356 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

your customers'. You cannot run your shop in your own 
way and ignore the workmen and the buyers. The workers 
cannot work and ignore you and the buyers. Nor can the 
buyers ignore you and the workmen and say, "You shall do 
thus and so for me." The three have to get along together. 
Isn't it about time we got big enough to discard the preju- 
dices of the past and try to pull together, not separately? 

The Chairman: We have all been watching the quiet 
work of one individual who has been working along lines 
apparently absolutely different from those being followed 
by any other worker in the Scientific Management field. I 
wonder if Mrs.. Gilbreth would say a word to us. 

Mrs. Gilbreth: I did not expect to speak in this place, 
but I feel as though I must. There is something I wanted very 
much to say at the meeting on academic efficiency yesterday, 
but there wasn't the time. I feel that the gap between the 
problems of academic efficiency and industrial efficiency, 
which is after all only an apparent gap, can be easily closed 
if only we will consider the importance of the psychology of 
management. I spent several years examining and studying 
it, and it seems to me that Scientific Management as laid 
down by Mr. Taylor conforms absolutely with psychology. 
Principles of vocational guidance may be studied along psy- 
chological lines to train the individual so he will know exactly 
what he does want to do. It is the place of the colleges to 
train the man so that when he comes into his work there will 
be no jar. Since the underlying aim is the same, and since 
psychology is the method by which we are all getting there, 
isn't it merely a question of difference of vocabulary between 
academic work and scientific work? Why not bridge this 
gap and all go ahead together? 

The Chairman: I always sympathize with a man who has 
to buck up against really hard problems, and I think Mr. 
Gilbreth has those all the time on his construction work. 
Mr. Gilbreth is vice-president of the Society for Promoting 
Engineering Education, and for these two reasons I think 
we should be very glad to hear from him. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 357 

Mr. Gilbreth: I propose to tell you two simple stories 
of things in line with what the others have told you this 
morning, except that perhaps they have this difference; that 
in our work things happen suddenly, something like a fire, 
and we have to be ready to work instantly. When I first 
read Mr. Taylor's papers I said, "Mr. Taylor, that is the 
finest thing I have read in my life, and I am sorry I can't 
adapt all of it to my business. Of course there are some 
very nice things that perhaps I can adapt, but it is unfortunate 
that your work is so different from mine that I simply can't 
apply much of it. I realize that that is the finest way in the 
world to run a machine-shop, but my work is different." 
Mr. Taylor was very patient and said, "If you will keep on 
trying you will find that it is right." I can save you gentle- 
men a lot of time if you will think that over. 

Take Paper No. 1003, by Mr. Taylor, one of the papers 
of the Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers, called "Shop Management." 1 After you have 
read that through four times at least, then get some of the 
other publications, notably papers No. 647 2 and No. cj28, 3 
the former being the first paper that Mr. Taylor wrote. The 
criticism has been made that "he shot over the head of the 
average man." But if you will read the other one, Paper 
1003, you will find it is a little nearer the level of the average 
man. Then read his presidential address, recognized every- 
where as the greatest paper ever written on the subject, 
entitled "The Art of Cutting Metals." 4 Although that 
paper is so good, people unfortunately do not know what it 
is about. They are misled by the title and don't understand 
that it is really about management. It made such an inter- 
national row on the subject of cutting metals, — I heard of 
it again last summer in England — that they refused to dis- 
cuss what he had to say on the subject of management in it. 

1 Vol. xxii, p. 1337. 

2 " Piece Rate System," by Frederick W. Taylor, Vol. xvi, p. 856. 

s "Bonus System for Rewarding Labor," by Henry L. Gantt, Vol. xxiii, p. 34. 

* No. 1119, Vol. xxviii, p. 31. 



358 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

It is not about metals at all, it is about management. After 
you have read Paper No. 1003, then No. 647, then "The 
Art of Cutting Metals," then No. 928, then Paper, — I 
don't remember the number, by Carl G. Barth, on "Slide 
Rules as a Part of the Taylor System of Management," * you 
will find that nearly all of the questions you ask are answered 
in every one of these papers. 

Yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to the professors 
discussing academic efficiency and they asked a great many 
questions. I felt sorry for them because I have asked these 
questions so many times myself; but there is no excuse for 
my continuing to ask questions, — they are all answered in 
"Shop Management," No. 1003. 

Now one thing about the discussion of academic efficiency. 
I am building a fairly large job at the present time on which 
I have a number of high school graduates, and a number of 
young college men, most of them from a few months to a 
very few years out of college. They come from the best 
colleges in this country, and they have formed themselves, 
without any suggestion from anybody, into the first Canadian 
Society for the Promotion of Scientific Management. They 
used as one of their books Bulletin No. 5 of the Carnegie 
Foundation, written by our chairman of today, and from 
their standpoint the management as described in that bulletin 
is flawless. They have told me so as I have talked with each 
one of them. Now the question of academic efficiency I am 
not prepared to debate, but I will say this however; these 
young men came from different colleges, the University of 
Illinois, Yale, Brown, Lehigh, Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, and I don't remember what other colleges, and 
every one of them said, "I regret exceedingly that our pro- 
fessors have not taken this thing seriously, and given it to 
us while we were in school." I pass this on to you. 

Now I am going to give you a very simple case that hap- 
pened all of a sudden. Unexpectedly we found ourselves 
possessed of a contract to unload a barge and deliver the 

1 No. 1010, Vol. xxv, p. 49. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 359 

material near a job. The road from the wharf ran up and 
around the shoulder of a hill to the site of the job. The way 
they had to unload that barge was to back up the teams to 
the boat, and then drive up-hill and around to the job. The 
material had to be unloaded somewhere in that circle until 
they were ready to use it. Before we got there, this being 
an emergency piece of work, they put the best foreman, as 
good a foreman as you could wish to see, in charge of this 
work on the old-time plan. Mr. Kendall called it yesterday 
the "unsystematized plan." We call it the " traditional plan," 
and if there is a little improvement in the traditional plan 
we call it the " transitory plan," and if it is down to what Mr. 
Taylor means when he calls it the "ultimate plan," we call 
it the ultimate plan. 

Now you can readily understand that a fire department 
can have the ultimate plan of management even though it 
doesn't know where the fire is going to be. That is almost 
the only variable which they don't know about. We don't 
know where our next job is going to be, but we have to be 
ready. 

This man had ten carts and horses and naturally he had 
ten drivers. There are many savings that could have been 
made, but were not for reasons which I shall not go into. We 
could easily have had a string of carts go along with one 
driver, but that wasn't done in this case. The first thing we 
did was to analyze that situation, exactly as Mr. Taylor has 
suggested, as it would be analyzed in a machine-shop. The 
laws underlying all similar situations we have found by 
practical experience are identical, and the only place where 
we fall down on those laws is where we haven't had sufficient 
experience or sufficient intelligence to make a success of it. 
There is not one exception to the rule; the application may 
be different, but the law holds good. Every one of those laws 
that you find in "Shop Management" we have found abso- 
lutely ridiculous at first, and absolutely perfect before we 
have done with them. 

We analyzed this proposition and took time-studies. We 



360 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

made out a time-table by which those men should go to work, 
and at the end of one day decided that five horses and five 
drivers should unload a good deal more than the men on the 
barge could give them. We found that the limiting feature 
was the number of carts that could back up to that barge and 
be loaded. To make a long story short, we found that a 
man ought to take twenty- three loads per day; he had 
been taking six. After giving this one day's study, we said, 
"Here, the price in this vicinity is $1.50 per day for a 
man, another dollar . for the horse. The horse doesn't get 
the dollar, the man gets the dollar; therefore we can't put 
a bonus on the horse; and, incidentally, we must see that 
that man doesn't make the horse overwork and the man 
get the bonus, because that would not be in accordance 
with the square deal." We said, " According to the laws of 
averages derived from other experiences of Mr. Taylor, that 
man ought to have $1.50 a day if he does it his way, and 
he ought to have eighty cents more if he does it our way, 
and that makes $2.30." 

Just imagine, gentlemen, what all of you would do to have 
a corresponding increase in pay for your daily work, a 60 
per cent increase in your income. However, in this case 
that eighty cents is the difference between being rich and 
barely getting across. The first man made his bonus the 
first day and resigned. We picked out another man and he 
got his bonus and he resigned. In the meantime these young 
college men, wanting to be more efficient, disregarded some 
of the rules; they went to work a little too fast and had a 
whole lot of tasks set everywhere. They worked days, nights 
and evenings for the promotion that would come to them, and 
they finally had so many tasks demanding their attention 
that when man after man fell down, — I mean by that, each 
got his bonus and resigned — they could not take time to 
investigate. They were busy somewhere else. And so we 
went back to the old way — ten men — and we got eight 
loads a day. As soon as the reports came in to the New York 
office, the "flying squadron" came out to the job to see what 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 361 

was the matter, and the leader said, "You must not let the 
first task that you set get away with you; you must stay with 
it until it is right." That is a very important thing. 

So we did, and the first man again resigned. "Well," then 
they said, "we will knock off all business everywhere else 
and we will have one man walk along with each driver all 
day and every man will then earn his bonus and it will be all 
right." But we found that there was a little something more 
to do than that. We found, — and Dr. Taylor expressed 
that in his talk the first evening here — that we should have 
to teach the workman that creating a big output is not a crime 
against his fellow-man. Recognizing that point, we took off 
five carts to begin with and put them on some other job. 
That left only five carts. It would require five carts then to 
take care of the material that the extra number of men un- 
loaded from the barge, and it was a case of taking that material 
or else preventing the men from having the job on the barge. 
That reversed the condition temporarily. We said to the 
men on the barge, "For every man that gets a bonus you get 
a bonus; if they all get a bonus you get a double bonus." 
And then we went to the foreman who was rather sore about 
this time, and we said, "Now for every man that gets a bonus 
you get ten cents a day. There are five of them; if all five 
get their bonus you get $1. And mind you, if all five don't 
get their bonus, you get the 'sack.'" And since that time 
every man on the job has earned $2.30 a day instead of $1.50, 
and worked nine hours and thirty-five minutes instead of ten 
hours, and the whips have been taken away, that being the 
only reward we could think of to give the horses. 

I will describe one more case; one concerning the applica- 
tion of the instruction card. We had a job to make twelve 
benches, and we had our lumber come in endways so the con- 
ditions would be the same in each case. We had an athletic 
contest, starting all the men at the same time, but these men 
could not speak English and they could not read French, so 
we had difficulty in making out an instruction card, that 
being one of the first things that I fought Mr. Taylor about. 



362 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

"There is no use," I said, "in making out instruction cards 
for these men, because they cannot read anyway." But if 
you read " Scientific Management " carefully, you will find 
that Mr. Taylor says an instruction card may be anything 
that will give the man the information. So we had a working 
exhibit made, and stereoscopic photographs of each step taken. 
Then we gave each of the men stereoscopic photographs, 
so that he could visualize the processes to be done. And we 
increased the output of every man an average of from two 
units to eight units per hour. 

Mr. Robinson: Mrs. Gilbreth has brought up this matter 
of academic efficiency, and it seems to me that in the dis- 
cussion yesterday we did not really get at it. I believe there 
is as much gain to be made in academic work as there has been 
in this other work, and that is about fifteen to one, as Mr. 
Barth says. 

Can we apply the principles of Scientific Management to 
academic work? First, we must get a standard that the man 
can reach, then determine how near he comes to doing it 
and finally devise some way of getting him to do it. It has 
not been done yet, so far as I know, but it seems to me 
that principles of Scientific Management can be applied. 

Now I want to read this which illustrates the present state 
of academic efficiency, not in all cases, mind you, but in a 
goodly number. In the students' room I have occupied in 
this college I read this, — and I mention it not as a reflec- 
tion on this college, because it represents the college where I 
am teaching, and I think it represents generally the academic 
spirit. This is a motto on the wall in large letters: "There is 
just one good thing which may be said of studying; it lends 
by contrast a greater zest to those activities for which one 
really comes to college." 

I asked my class in descriptive geometry the other day, 
when they came in with their lessons half prepared: "If you 
took this attitude on the football team and could not do 
anything, what would happen?" They laughed and said, 
"They would fire us out." 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 363 

Now what are we going to do about it? In the first place 
we must do what Scientific Management does. 

First, we must select our material a little more carefully, 
and then when we have got it we must keep our eye on it. 
And it seems to me the thing to go by is this one thing, the 
attitude of the student; has he the enthusiasm for his study 
that the ordinary man has for football? If he has not that 
enthusiasm he has got to get it, and if he cannot get it he had 
better go into some business in which he can get it. 

I have one illustration. I was teaching in a technical 
school which had started anew. In the second year that 
school had one boy who seemed almost a hopeless case. 
He was likable, he had a good physique, he was a first-class 
young animal. But he had no moral nature to speak of. 
It seemed impossible to do anything with him. He would 
cheat in his examinations before your eyes and not know that 
he was doing anything out of the way. That school had had 
no athletics. They began football and baseball that year. 
This boy took a great interest in both. During his first year 
his studies were a failing business. By working on that boy, 
— it was a small school and we could get very close to the 
students — by working on that boy we got him tremendously 
enthusiastic over his football and his baseball. Since he was 
a simple-minded youth and did not have the traditions of 
older classes to form his mind, we were able to work that 
enthusiasm into his studies. 

Now where is that poor kind of a boy. He graduated with 
A's in his studies, captain of the football team, captain of 
the baseball team, and we could leave him in an examination 
and let him have access to anything and he would not use it. 
He was a sport. He put the sporting instinct into his work. 
When he came out did he have to take two or three years to 
get adjusted to his work? No. He went right into his work 
with the same enthusiasm he had gone into his baseball and 
football, and simply went right up the ladder. The other 
day he was elected to a public position of honor and of 
responsibility. 



364 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

That is what we want to get. How are we going to get it? 
I don't know. I have not solved the problem. I am merely 
stating it to you, and I want somebody to help me and help 
the rest of the college family to work it out. 

Mr. Webster: There is one point that I am very glad 
has been brought out, because it is a point I should like to 
make myself. It is this : one of the speakers yesterday said, 
if I am not mistaken — I was very much astonished — that 
it turned out that the management as a rule has under Scien- 
tific Management about one man to every three workmen, — 
am I right? That is a capital thing to find out, and when you 
introduce that in colleges you will get similar results. At 
present we have one man handling an enormous number of 
men. So many that he does not look upon them as men; he 
looks upon them as people who trouble him. 

Now, gentlemen, I should like to tell you one thing that I 
know something about. It is not in my institution, but it 
is in Princeton. Scientific Management has been applied 
at Princeton. If there are any Princeton graduates here I 
apologize for what I am going to say; it is complimentary to 
Princeton. But in the last fifteen years Princeton Univer- 
sity has been made over. It has been made into a place 
where it is fashionable to study, where learning has become 
respectable. It was recognized by Woodrow Wilson and 
other people in authority there that men spent their time on 
something else. Why under the sun it is not recognized by 
everybody I don't see. And what did they do? They hired 
a lot of young men whom they called preceptors, paid them 
good salaries, and these young men were to sit by these stu- 
dents, three or four at a time, about the same ratio that you 
gentlemen of Scientific Management have discovered. And 
the same effort spent, ladies and gentlemen, in various ways 
will produce the same result. Only you must have feeling, 
you must have sympathy, you must have human nature. 
These addresses have interested me in proportion as they 
have brought out the human element. 

Now, if the universities in this country cannot so lead 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 365 

public opinion as to see that everybody who comes from a 
university shall be using himself at the very best efficiency 
there is in him, for the good of the whole people, these 
universities have no right whatever to exist or to spend any 
money. 

The Chairman: We have about half an hour. We have 
three speakers whom I should like to hear from, and I am 
going to ask them to confine themselves each to ten minutes. 
I am sorry to do it, but I must. Mr. Hollis Godfrey will 
now tell us something about the use of a planning board. I 
want to say that, if I am right, he knew absolutely nothing 
about molding machines six months ago. I do not believe 
he had ever seen one, and what he is going to tell us today 
is interesting to me because it shows how a man, who knew 
absolutely nothing about the business into which he went, 
was able to control some of the details which we have come 
to feel can be mastered by a man only after he has been on 
the job fifteen or twenty years. 

Me. Godfrey: To begin, we must make a few definitions. 
All work in a scientifically managed factory is handled from 
the central Planning Department. The instrument by which 
the Planning Department or "Planning Room" controls the 
shop is the " Planning Board" or Bulletin Board, as it is 
sometimes called. The man who controls the board is the 
Order-of-work Clerk who is sometimes called the Bulletin 
Board Clerk. Briefly speaking, all knowledge of the progress 
of the work in the factory is shown on this planning board 
and all movement of raw and finished material from point to 
point. All beginning and ending of operations is controlled 
by the movement of the operation orders on the planning 
board. One may almost say that the planning board is a 
great bulletin board made up of group after group of small 
bulletin boards, each of which small boards represents a single 
machine or work place and each of which small boards has 
three sets of hooks, one over the other. When a job goes into 
the shop, that is, when the drawings, instruction cards etc. are 
ready, when the materials are all found to be on hand and 



366 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

everything is ready to actually perform the work, the opera- 
tion order which concerns a given operation goes on to hook 
No. 3, "Jobs ahead in shop," of the machine on which that 
operation is to be done. When the materials have been 
moved to the machine, the operation order goes to hook 
No. 2, "Jobs ahead at machine." When the job actually 
gets on the machine the order is moved to hook No. i, 
"Job on machine." So that the man at the planning 
board knows at any time where a given job is by the 
movement of the operation orders on those three hooks. 
That is, the movement of all things in the shop is repre- 
sented by the movement of the operation orders on the 
planning board. 

The movement of the operation orders at the shop board, 
moreover, controls that most important of questions — "Which 
job shall we do first?" — for it is the order or sequence in 
which the orders are placed on hook No. 2 of the planning 
board that determines the order or sequence of the jobs that 
are done in the shop. One point more and the preliminary 
discussion of the planning board will be done. We can hardly 
pass on to the next problem without a word concerning the 
way the work goes from the board inside the planning room 
to the shop outside. When the order goes to hook No. 2, 
"Jobs ahead at machine," a duplicate order goes out into the 
shop on to a corresponding shop board, so that the order of 
work for the machine, as we call it, or the sequence of the 
jobs to be done, is the same on hook No. 2 of the ma- 
chine bulletin board in the planning room as it is on the 
machine bulletin board out in the shop. 

There are a whole series of questions which we can answer 
immediately by means of this planning board, besides that 
important question "Which job shall we do first?" and the 
subject immediately before us concerns some questions which 
we recently formulated at the Tabor Manufacturing Company. 
The order-of-work clerk at the Tabor is an able man with 
a very unusual memory. He could give out on call in a really 
amazing fashion all sorts of necessary shop information, but 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 367 

that information depended on the memory of a single man. 
It had never been recorded or coordinated. It could not 
readily be passed on to another man. So we formulated the 
following questions for each machine in order to record and 
coordinate that necessary shop knowledge which the order- 
of-work clerk possessed. The first of these questions is: 
"If a machine breaks down what other machine can do the 
work? " (a question which comes without any warning in any 
plant). Second, "If a man is out what other man can do 
the job?" Third, "What is the cost of any operation on 
any machine for any hour, or what is the total cost of all 
operations going on on all machines in any hour?" To 
answer these questions we collected and coordinated all the 
material we could get and finally constructed a planning board 
chart, a copy of a small portion of which is shown here. 



X 

Machine 

No. 
Grindera 

G. 17 
G. 26 

Lathes 

L. 14 
L. 22 


2 

Shop 
Board 

B-3 

A-4 

C-3 
C -6 


PLAN! 
3 4 

• MAN 

Name No. 

Smith 26 
Church 31 

Manning 47 
Hayes 83 


VING BOARD 
5 6 


CHART 

7 

Machine 
Cost 

II 28 

G. 12 22 

26 
29 


8 
Machine 
Man from 

S.L. 14 
S.D. 14 

X 
X 


9 

Machine 

Work can 

go to 

G. 26 
G. 17 

L. 22 
L. 14 


RDNNTNG ' 

Wage Capacity 

30 S. -D. 
25 G. 17 - 

28 G. 17 
34 A.A.M. 



In column No. 1 is the machine number. There are repre- 
sented here two grinders, grinder 17 and grinder 26, and two 
lathes, lathe 14 and lathe 22. 

There are nine things that we wanted to show on this chart. 
There is the machine number in column 1, and the shop board 
on which operation orders for that machine are posted in 
column 2. There is also the "Man Running," his name, 
number, wage and capacity. (Columns 3, 4, 5 and 6.) 
"Capacity" is the only one of those headings that needs expla- 
nation. Take G. 17, for example. Smith's capacity means 
the machines that he can run besides G. 17. He can run 
not only G. 17 and "S." (which means that he can run any of 
the grinders) but also "D. 11," which means that he can rim 



368 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

one of the drills — drill No. 1 1 . Next comes the cost num- 
ber column which means the average cost of running G. 17 
one hour in the preceding year. Next is the column showing 
the machines from which a man could come to run G. 17. In 
the last column are entered the numbers of machines which 
can do the work of G. 17. 

To get these data we had to go around and find out all the 
men who could run different machines. Suppose G. 1 7 breaks 
down. We look over in column 9 and we find instantly that 
the work can be transferred to G. 26, and, if G. 26 is free, the 
work is transferred immediately to that machine. If Smith, 
who is regularly on G. 17, does not come in, we can look down 
the planning board chart and determine which man can go 
on G. 17. We know from the "S." that any one who can run 
a grinder can run G. 17, and the man who has the least impor- 
tant work can be swung over to that; or we can take the man 
on L.14, because he is also trained to run G. 17. We have 
answered two of our questions. We have answered the 
question, "What machine can we put work on at any 
moment?" and we have answered the question, "What 
man can be put on a given machine in case the regular 
man is out?" 

The third question, the question of cost per hour, is answered 
by simply adding together the cost of running the machine 
and the cost of workman's wages (columns 5 and 7) and the 
sum of the two gives the cost per operation hour. 

On the next line we have: "G. 26," shop board A — 4; 
man running, Church, No. 31, wages 25 cents per hour; 
capacity, "G. 17, G. 12." Suppose we consider this case 
for a moment: Church could be swung to G. 17 or G. 12. 
He cannot run the other grinders. The cost number of 
his machine is 22. A man can come to this grinder from 
one of the same grinders or from D. 14, while the work 
can be transferred to G. 17, which does the same class of 
work. 

Against L. 14 we have an "X," which indicates that no man 
excepting the L. 14 man can run that machine, while L. 22 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 369 

can be run by Hayes only, who is an "A.A.M." — an all- 
around man. 

If any plan is to be a success there has to be some inspec- 
tion for it. So we worked out an inspection form which has 
in the first column the machine numbers, G. 12, G. 13, G. 14, 
etc., and then has in the following columns the headings, 
"Hours," " Preparation," "Sequence" and "Remarks." 

Planning Board Inspection Form 
Number Sours Preparation Sequence Remarks 

G. 12 
G. 13 
G. 14 
G. is 
G. 16 
G. 17 

"Hours" means that on the planning board we have to 
see that there is ten hours' work planned ahead for every 
workman. "Preparation" means that work shall have been 
prepared or planned for ten hours' work ahead. If the jobs 
take up less than ten hours, we make preparation for three 
jobs ahead. Either three jobs, or ten hours' work ahead is 
the rule. 

The third column is "Sequence" and that indicates whether 
or not the order of work is being followed. The fourth is 
for "Remarks." 

Suppose we illustrate an inspection by the aid of this chart, 
and suppose we say that the order-of-work clerk is inspecting 
the planning board on the grinder division. First, he 
looks at G. 12 and sees if there are ten hours work ahead for 
the workman. Second, we have a red tag which indicates 
how much preparation is out. He looks at the position of 
this red tag to see if the tool lists, inspection cards, drawings, 
etc. are ready for the workman to do three jobs ahead; that 
is, to see if he has all the tools and instructions he needs. 
Third, he looks to see if the proper order of work is being 
followed, — that is, if the sequence is being followed, if the 
jobs on the hooks represent the way in which the workman 
is to do his work. Fourth, he glances to see if there is 



370 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

anything beside these matters which is out of the way. Now 
as to the order-of-work clerk's action on the basis of this 
inspection. If he sees in G. 14 that the man has not ten 
hours work ahead he simply draws a line opposite G. 14. 
He comes to G. 15 and sees that preparation is only made for 
two jobs instead of three. He draws a line there. He looks 
at G. 16 and sees that the sequence is not right; he had a 
stock order ahead of a shipping order on those books and he 
draws a line there. He finds that the time-study man has 
made an error in figuring the time-units necessary for the job 
on G. 15, and he enters "T.S." in the remarks column. By 
that series of checks, therefore, all the order-of-work clerk 
has to do beyond his inspection is to hand the inspection 
sheet over to the recording clerk and the other clerks responsi- 
ble and say, "Why is not that right?" The order-of-work 
clerk should use such an inspection on himself and find his 
own errors by such inspection. 

Such a scheme as this one illustrates the principle laid 
down by Mr. Taylor of collecting the knowledge of the shop 
which exists only in men's minds, recording it, coordinat- 
ing it and putting it in a form easily available for use. It 
has already shown its use and has made possible a notable 
increase in the speed and accuracy of running the board. 

The Chairman: There is one more speaker. I do not 
often give Mr. Taylor instructions, but last night I told him 
I wanted him to take one problem out of his experience and 
tell us how he solved it; but I have changed my mind about 
it now and I am going to ask him to simply close this confer- 
ence. I am sure that some of the things he has heard and 
seen have made an impression on him, and I should like him 
to use his time as he sees fit. Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. Taylor: The first piece of time-study that I ever 
saw was made by a professor who was making a time-study 
of the students under him. Any of you may have had the 
good fortune to go to school at Phillips Exeter Academy, 
and many of you who have not had that good fortune, have 
heard of Professor George W. Wentworth, never known as 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 371 

Wentworth at Exeter, but known as "Old Bull." With all 
of us at Exeter it was a matter of very great surprise that 
Bull Wentworth was able throughout the whole year, from 
the beginning to the end, in whatever branch of mathematics 
he was teaching, to assign us a lesson for the next day which 
would always take us just so long to get. It was astonishing, 
perfectly surprising. He became known as the most severe 
master at Exeter; he drove the boys harder than anybody 
else. We thought that by some intuition he found out the 
fellows who were not working. It would sometimes be a 
stupid boy and sometimes it would be the brightest boy in 
the class who was not working. It did not make a bit of 
difference to " Old Bull " who it was; it did not matter whether 
the bright boy was reciting fairly well or not. That was not 
what he was bothered about. He found out somehow or other 
that that fellow was not working as much as he ought, and 
he expected about three or four times as much of the smart 
fellows as he did of the stupid ones. That is rather unusual. 
The moment he found that such and such men were not 
working he made a list of them, and at least half of two days 
out of every week at the recitation was given to roughing those 
boys in the presence of the class. He would call them up, 
stand them up in front and ask them all kinds of questions 
in his tremendously sarcastic manner. The whole class was 
familiar with this roughing operation, and it was sport for 
all the rest of us. Whenever "Old Bull" would ask a fellow 
a sarcastic question, the whole class would get up and howl. 
The fellow would answer to the best of his ability, but after 
three or four days of this he would get sick of it and go to 
work. The moment he went to work "Old Bull" had some 
way of finding it out, and he would stop roughing him and 
take another man. 

I don't know whether Bull applied time-study to that, but 
he did apply time-study to another thing. It was a long time 
before we found it out. He had a watch in the front of his 
desk and we all knew that the watch was there, but we could 
not find out what it was for. After a while we found out 



372 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

what he was doing with it. He spent at least half of one 
recitation every week in making a time-study of the boys. 
We did not know what it was for. He would give a certain 
series of problems, probably selected by him with the greatest 
care as test problems, and he insisted that on those days as 
soon as a boy had solved a problem he should raise his hand 
instantly, and he would call his name. That made quite a 
little emulation among the boys; all of them wanted to be 
the first to be called. And they could not fake it. Lots of 
us would have been entirely ready to fake it so as to be first 
to be called, but we never knew when "Old Bull" was going 
to ask us to get up and shout, so we could not fake. That 
kept the matter straight. Whenever a fellow held up his 
hand it was the genuine thing. When he reached the middle 
of the class this calling of names was stopped, and he would 
go on and do something else, start another problem. 

Now what was happening was this: "Bull" was getting the 
ratio of his own mind in solving each of these problems as they 
came along to the mind of the man in the middle of the class. 
He was making a time-study on mental ability. And by means 
of that knowledge he found the progress which his class was 
making, and month by month the men grew much more rapid 
and more efficient. He kept up a continuous knowledge of 
the ratio of his mind to the mind of the rest of the class, and 
by that means he was able, in assigning a task for the next 
day, to give exactly the right amount for the men to do. He 
would simply make a time-study for himself of the various 
problems he was going to give out and multiply that by the 
ratio, and then he had just two hours or two hours and a 
half of work that he made us do, and he kept the average of 
the class doing that right straight along. That is the first 
case of scientific time-study that I ever saw and it was 
mightily effective. 

I am speaking merely from analogy, but I am absolutely 
certain that there are thousands of similar cases in which 
accurate knowledge ought now to be applied to academic 
work in place of some one's "think so," some one's guess about 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 373 

it, some one's general experience, some one's rule-of- thumb. 
Most of your college work is now run by rule-of-thumb just 
as the workman's is run by rule-of-thumb. That is the point 
that I want to bring out; what these things are I don't know, 
no one knows, but that they exist in academic work just as 
they exist in all the rest of the work in this world, I am 
absolutely certain. 

Mr. Cardullo: Just one question. Can you run it in 
any other way than by rule-of-thumb when you have a ratio 
of one instructor to twenty students? 

Mr. Taylor: Well, now, "Old Bull" had fifty in his class 
and he was doing something all right. In many cases I quite 
agree with you, the point is well taken; that is, that the 
ratio of instructors to students is so small that you don't 
find time to do anything but the rough part of the work. I 
agree entirely that you will have to have more men, more 
time-study men. In that matter you are entirely right, but 
something can be done. I think a change in the viewpoint 
is something; a belief in the possibilities is something. 

Mr. Cardullo: I find I can prepare instruction cards but 
I cannot see that those instructions are carried out. 

Mr. Taylor: That is right; that is entirely right. You 
must have more men to do it. That is entirely true, but I 
think the more men will be forthcoming. 

There ought to be a vast amount of that work done, and in 
the bulletin Mr. Cooke wrote that is just what he tried to 
point out to you, gentlemen. 

Now I want to say another word, a word that I did not 
have an opportunity to take into the conference on academic 
efficiency, and something which I am quite sure that you 
gentlemen do not realize; namely, that Mr. Cooke was well 
qualified to speak on the subject on which he did speak. 
You think that he was "butting in" on academic matters. 
Now I want to tell you, gentlemen, that Mr. Cooke was 
perhaps as well qualified as any man in this country, or better 
qualified, to speak on the subject, to write on the subject 
that he wrote upon. He was qualified from experience, — 



374 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

not experience in that direct line, but experience in a line 
which is so analogous that there is comparatively little dif- 
ference. Mr. Cooke was chosen by Dr. Pritchett of the 
Carnegie Foundation as the man to investigate academic 
efficiency because of his special qualifications to do it. Mr. 
Cooke was the man who was chosen, — when nineteen out 
of twenty of the Council of the American Society of Mechani- 
cal Engineers believed, firmly believed, just as the nineteen 
out of twenty professors in the average university firmly 
believe, that no man inside or outside of the university can 
do very much towards increasing the efficiency of the man- 
agement of that university — Mr. Cooke was chosen, an out- 
sider, a junior member of the society, not being at all familiar 
with the affairs of the society or with the management of 
the society, to reorganize the management of the American 
Society of Mechanical Engineers. For a year and a half 
Mr. Cooke did for the American Society of Mechanical Engi- 
neers just what some day some man is going to do for your 
universities, and the sooner the better. Mr. Cooke investi- 
gated every activity of the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers, made a scientific investigation of it; and by that 
I do not mean that he himself made this investigation, but in 
every case he consulted one or more experts, the best that 
could be had in the country, and asked their advice and called 
them in in consultation as to every trifling element affecting 
the management of the society. Nothing was too small, 
nothing was too great to investigate. Let me say what the 
principal object of this investigation was, and I think it will 
appeal to you gentlemen. It ought to appeal to every 
professor in every university. The principal object of Mr. 
Cooke's investigation of the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers was to free the head men in that society, the men 
who were busy men, men whom you may call relatively to 
other working people, the high-priced men, from all routine 
work, from all drudgery, from all trivial decisions; so as 
to leave them absolutely free from harassing details, so as to 
put them in the position in which they could devote their 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 375 

energies to the vital interests of the society. That was the 
first and great object which Mr. Cooke had in view. So he 
studied the activities of all of the head men of the society 
and found out that a large part of their time was taken up 
in doing trivial matters that a cheaper man could do. He 
then proceeded to eliminate all of those trivial activities from 
these men and hand them over to cheaper men. In order 
not to interfere with the success of these men, it became 
necessary to be sure that these cheaper men would do these 
various trifling things, or less important things, if you choose 
to call them so, just as well as the high-priced man had done 
them before. Therefore, every one of these activities small 
and large, had to be standardized, had to be studied in the 
most minute way; the best thing had to be found and then 
a standard established with a system of daily and weekly 
inspection from the outside. Some man comes in to inspect 
this clerk's duties, that clerk's duties, so that the standards 
that have been set up for the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers are never allowed to fall down. Then the secretary 
and the auditors, all of the important men of the society, are 
informed by summarized reports at frequent intervals con- 
cerning the way in which all of these details are being carried 
out. Those are the checks, so that the affairs of the society 
are carried out far better than they ever were in the past; 
are carried out by cheaper men; and the final result is that 
the men who are managing the society are at least, man for 
man, four to six times as efficient towards making progress 
as they ever were in the past. Mr. Cooke had the help of 
a committee who were very much in earnest. All that the 
committee did was advisory work. No committee ought to 
do anything but advisory work. Executive work on the 
part of a committee is an anachronism and ought to be 
stopped. You people in the colleges are doing much of it. 
Executive work should be done not by a committee but by 
a man. No such thing in the world now as executive work 
in a well-regulated institution is done by committees. The 
committees of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 



376 TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 

and there are many of them, are run now on exactly that 
principle. All that they have to do is to exercise their 
judgment. The society supplies, — not always cheaper men, 
sometimes very high-priced men — but always some one else, 
to do the executive work of a committee. 



REGISTRATION AT 
THE CONFERENCE 



REGISTRATION 



Adams, George H. 
Adams, Mark I. 
Albree, Edward C. 

Ambrose, A. N. 
Andrews, H. F. 

Ayres, Philip W. 



Insurance Commissioner 
Wm. Filene's Sons Co. 
President, Albree Self-figuring 

System Co. 
Ambrose Bros. 
Cost & System Manager, 

A. J. Bates Co. 
Forester 



Plymouth, N. H. 
Boston, Mass. 

Swampscott, Mass. 
Norwood, Mass. 

Webster, Mass. 
Concord, N. H. 



Badger, E. B., 2nd 

Baker, John W. 
Baldwin, Harry S 



Banning, Kendall 

Barnes, Joel M. 
Barter, A. E. 
Barter, Mrs. A. E. 
Barth, Carl G. 
Bass, Hon. Robert 
Baston, Charles B. 

Bateman, G. W. 
Battey, Harry F. 

Billard, F. H. 



Blake, C. A. 
Bloomfield, M. 
Boardman, H. E. 
Bradley, M. C. 

Brennan, Thomas 
Brigham, L. S. 



Superintendent, E. B. Badger & 

Sons Co. 
Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Treasurer and General Manager, 

Phoenix Lunch Co. and Dunlap- 

Baldwin Co. 
Managing Editor of System, The 

System Co. 
Treasurer, Harpham & Barnes Co. 
Superintendent, The Plimpton Press 

Consulting Engineer 
Governor of New Hampshire 
Superintendent, Chemical Mills of 

Burgess Sulphite Fiber Co. 
Cost Keeper, Sullivan Machinery Co. 
Department Manager, 

Isaac Prouty & Co., Inc. 
Secretary-Treasurer and Forester, 

N. H. Timberland Owners' 

Association 
Salesman, Western Electric Co. 
Director, Vocational Bureau 
Manager of Sales, Eastern Talc Co. 
Special Agent, 

Boston & Maine Railroad Co. 
Hemenway, Barnes & Farley 
Brigham Sheet Gelatine Co. 

379 



Boston, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 



Springfield, Mass. 

New York, N. Y. 
Boston, Mass. 
Norwood, Mass. 
Norwood, Mass. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Concord, N. H. 

Berlin, N. H. 
Claremont, N. H. 

Spencer, Mass. 



Berlin, N. H. 
Boston, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 

Boston, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 
Randolph, Vt. 



TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



380 

Brighty, Ralph Industrial Engineer, 

Forbes Lithograph Co. 
Brooks, Arthur W. Treasurer and Manager, 

Pratt Shoe Co. 
Brooks, Frank Executive, E. &. T. Fairbanks & Co. 

Broughton, C. F. Supt. of Weaving, Amoskeag Mfg. Co. 

Brown, W. R. Pres., N. H. Forestry Commission, 

Director of Berlin Mills Co. 
Browne, Edwin S. Manager Efficiency Division, 

The Curtis Publishing Co. 
Bryant, R. C. Professor of Lumbering, 

Yale University 
Bryant, R. E. Chief Draftsman, 

Jefferson Union Co. 
Burt, Clarence Wm. H. Dexter Co. 

Butts, Edward P. Chief Engineer, 

American Writing Paper Co. 



Revere, Mass. 

Natick, Mass. 
St. Johnsbury, Vt. 
Manchester, N. H. 

Berlin, N. H. 

Philadelphia, Perm. 

New Haven, Conn. 

Lexington, Mass. 
Springfield, Mass. 

Holyoke, Mass. 



Camp, Sewall F. 

Campbell, F. P. 
Cardullo, Forrest E. 

Carter, Winthrop L. 



Caswell, F. M. 

Cate, Eleazar 
Chamberlain, E. H. 
Chase, C. P. 

Chase, John C. 

Chedel, George A. 
Childs, E. G. 
Chipman, Miner 
Churchill, P. W. 
Clark, Dana 

Clark, J. C. 

Clark, Robert C. 

Clement, C. S. 
Cleveland, Fred'k A. 

Coe, H. L. 



Industrial Engineer, 

The Plimpton Press 
International Paper Co. 
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, 

New Hampshire College 
General Manager, 

Nashua Gummed & Coated 

Paper Co. 
Comptroller of Accounts, 

Amoskeag Mfg. Co. 
President, L. E. Knott Apparatus Co. 
Forbes Lithograph Co. 
President, Springfield Board of Trade, 

President, C. P. Chase & Co. 
Treasurer and General Manager, 

The Benjamin Chase Co. 
Superintendent, Champlain Realty Co. 
Bliss Fabyan & Co. 
The Emerson Co. 
Accountant, Berlin Mills Co. 
Foreman Pattern Shop, 

E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. 
General Manager, 

E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. 
Manager Valve Department, 

E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. 
C. S. Clement & Co. 
Chairman of the President's Commis- 
sion on Economy and Efficiency 
Harpham & Barnes Co. 



Norwood, Mass. 
Wilder, Vt. 

Durham, N. H. 



Nashua, N. H. 

Manchester, N. H. 
Boston, Mass. 
Chelsea, Mass. 

Springfield, Mass. 

Derry, N. H. 
White River June, Vt. 
Boston, Mass. 
New York, N. Y. 
Berlin, N. H. 

St. Johnsbury, Vt. 

St. Johnsbury, Vt. 

St. Johnsbury, Vt. 
Nashua, N. H. 

Washington, D. C. 
Boston, Mass. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 



38l 



Cone, Charles M. Treasurer, Hartford Woolen Co. 

Cooke, Morris L. Consulting Engineer 

Cooke, Mrs. Morris L. 



Corcoran, C. M. 
Cox, H. E. 

Crabtree, H. 
Crane, E. H. 
Cranshaw, Harold B. 
Cross, Howard L. 
Crowley, P. F. 

Cunningham, T. E. 

Cushman, Charles L. 



Cost Manager, Manville Co. 
Superintendent Portville Tannery, 

Northwestern Leather Co. 
Manager, Adams Paper Co. 
Treasurer, Vermont Printing Co. 

John H. Cross Co. 
Office Manager, 

Cass & Daley Shoe Co. 
Vice-President, 

F. M. Hoyt Shoe Co. 
President, Cushman-Hollis Co. 



Cushman, Mrs. Chas. L. 



Hartford, Vt. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Providence, R. I. 

Portville, N. Y. 
Wells River, Vt. 
Brattleboro, Vt. 
Providence, R. I. 
Boston, Mass. 

Salem, Mass. 

Manchester, N. H. 
Auburn, Maine 
Auburn, Maine 



Daniell, Edward 
Davie, John S. B. 
Davis, Harry F. 
Demmick, Ford W. 
Dexter, William H. 
Diemer, Hugo 

Dodge, James M. 
Dole, Arthur E. 
Donovan, Alfred W. 
Donovan, F. J. 
Dreier, Thomas 
Duffy, J. E. 



Menominee Light & Power Co. 
Commissioner of Labor 
Superintendent, Sulloway Mills 
Northwestern Leather Co. 
President, Wm. H. Dexter Co. 
Professor Industrial Engineering, 

Penn. State College 
Chairman of Board, Link-Belt Co. 
Bank Commissioner 
President, E. T. Wright & Co., Inc. 
Accountant, Windsor Machine Co. 
The Thomas Dreier Service 
Treasurer, Acme Knitting 

Machine & Needle Co. 



Menominee, Mich. 
Concord, N. H. 
Franklin, N. H. 
Boston, Mass. 
Springfield, Mass. 

State College, Penn. 
Nicetown, Penn. 
Concord, N. H. 
Rockland, Mass. 
Windsor, Vt. 
Cambridge, Mass. 

Franklin, N. H. 



Eastman, John R. 
Eaton, J. Shirley 
Emerson, Harrington 

Emerson, Mrs. H. 
Evarts, Sherman 



Trustee Dartmouth College, 
Railroad Statistician 
Consulting Engineer, President, 
The Emerson Co. 

Lawyer 



Andover, N. H. 
New York, N. Y. 

New York, N. Y. 
New York, N. Y. 
Windsor, Vt. 



Fairbanks, Joseph P. Executive, E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. 



Farwell, R. E. 
Ferguson, John C. 

Fielder, E. W. 
Filene, A. Lincoln 

Flanders, Ralph E. 



Manager, Ryegate Paper Co. 
General Baking Co. (Ferguson 

Branch) 
Editor, D. Appleton & Co. 
General Manager, 

Wm. Filene's Sons Co. 
Mechanical Engineer, 

Fellows Gear Shaper Co. 



St. Johnsbury, Vt. 
East Ryegate, Vt. 

Boston, Mass. 
New York, N. Y. 

Boston, Mass. 

Springfield, Vt. 



3 82 



TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



Foord, James A. 



Foster, Prof. F. J. 
Franklin, Benjamin A. 
Fraser, Bert 
Fry, Thomas W. 



Professor of Farm Administration, 
Massachusetts Agricultural Col- 
lege Amherst, Mass. 

Prof, of Forestry, N. H. College Durham, N. H. 

Vice-President, Strathmore Paper Co. Mittineague, Mass. 

Purchasing Agent, F. M. Hoyt Shoe Co. Manchester, N. H. 

Works Manager, Sullivan 

Machinery Co. Claremont, N. H. 



Gale, Charles J. 
Gantt, Henry L. 
Gay, Edwin F. 

Gibbs, R. C. 
Gibson, Geo. S. 

Gilbreth, Frank B. 
Gilbreth, Mrs. F. B. 
Gile, E. S. 
Gill, Miss Laura 

Godfrey, Hollis 
Goodell, R. C. 
Green, Arthur B. 
Gregory, H. S. 

Gregory, R. H. 



Auditor, Harvard Dining Halls 

Consulting Engineer 

Dean, Harvard Graduate School of 

Business Administration 
Atlantic National Bank 
Superintendent of Construction, 

American Real Estate Co. 
President, Frank B. Gilbreth, Inc. 

Treasurer, Weekly Bulletin Pub. Co. 
President, Association of Collegiate 

Alumna? 
With Frederick W. Taylor 
Vice-President, Goodell Co. 
S. D. Warren & Co. 
Private Secretary to W. R. Brown, 

Berlin Mills Co. 
Comptroller, Western Electric Co. 



Cambridge, Mass. 
New York, N. Y. 

Cambridge, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 

New York, N. Y. 
New York, N. Y. 
New York, N. Y. 
Boston, Mass. 

New York, N. Y. 
West Medford, Mass. 
Antrim, N. H. 
Cumberland Mills, Me. 

Berlin, N. H. 
New York, N. Y. 



Hall, Edwin M. 

Hall, S. Carter 
Hammond, 

Herbert H. 
Harrington, E. M. 
Hartness, James 

Hartpence, Edgar L. 

Haslet, George W. 
Hathaway, H. K. 
Hathaway, Mrs. H. K 
Heald, Edward S. 

Hemphill, Ashton E. 
Hill, H. C. 

Hillman, Frederick J. 
Hinman, John H. 



Treasurer and General Manager, 

Jefferson Union Co. 
International Paper Co. 
President, The Standard Electric 

Time Co. 
E. I. duPont de Nemours Powder Co. 
President, Jones & Lamson 

Machine Co. 
Vice-President and General Manager, 

The Acme Wire Co. 
Agent, Hillsboro Woolen Mills Co. 
Vice-President, The Tabor Mfg. Co. 

Genera Manager 

French & Heald Co. 
Storage Warehouse Owner 
State Engineer 

President, New England Audit Co. 
Manager and Treasurer, The 
Orange Lumber Co. 



Lexington, Mass. 
Turners Falls, Mass. 

Boston, Mass. 
Wilmington, Del. 

Springfield, Vt. 

New Haven, Conn. 
Hillsboro, N. H. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 

Milford, N. H. 
Holyoke, Mass. 
Concord, N. H. 
Springfield, Mass. 

Plainfield, Vt. 






ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 



383 



Hirst, E. C. State Forester Concord, N. H. 

Holbrook, H. S. General Agent, Conn. Mutual Life 

Ins. Co., The Quaker Shoe Co. Manchester, N. H. 

Holmes, L. S. Chief Inspector, Western Electric Co. Chicago, 111. 

Hopkins, E. M. Employment Manager, 

Wm. Filene's Sons Co. Boston, Mass. 
Hopkins, L. B. Head Shop Clerk, General Electric 

Co. (Pittsfield Works) Pittsfield, Mass. 
Home, Frank W. Cost Department, The S. H. Howe 

Shoe Co. Marlboro, Mass. 

Howe, Willard B. Treasurer, Free Press Association Burlington, Vt. 

Hull, Morton Secretary, Holyoke Board of Trade Holyoke, Mass. 

Hunter, Louis J. Supervisor of Methods, 

New England Tel. & Tel. Co. Boston, Mass. 

Hutchins, H. W. Superintendent, Derby & Ball Bellows Falls, Vt. 

Jackson, Head of Appointment Bureau, 

Miss Florence Women's Industrial Union Boston, Mass. 

Johnson, Harry B. Bond Salesman, Lee, Higginson & Co. Boston, Mass. 
Jones, Charles H. President, The Commonwealth Shoe 

and Leather Co. Boston, Mass. 

Jonett, Mark R., Jr. Factory Manager, Ginn & Co. Boston, Mass. 



Keely, R. R. 
Keith, Harold C. 

Kelly, John W. 
Kendall, Henry P. 
Kenerson, E. W. H. 
Kennedy, Frank A. 
Kent, William 
Kimball, Benjamin A. 



King, George M. 
King, S. F. 

Kingsbury, E. H. 
Kittleson, John 

Krippendorf, Paul 



Consulting Engineer, Tabor Mfg. Co. 
Assistant Treasurer, 

George E. Keith Co. 
Attorney, Boston & Maine R. R. 
Manager, Plimpton Press 
Salesman, Ginn & Co. 
Director, National Biscuit Co. 
Consulting Engineer 
President, The Concord and 

Montreal R. R.; President, 

The Mechanicks National Bank 
Textile 
Clerk Freight Claims, 

Boston & Albany R. R. 
Secretary, L. H. Howe Shoe Co. 
Manager, E. & T. Fairbanks 

& Co., Ltd. 
Sales Manager, Krippendorf 

Kalculator 



Philadelphia, Penn. 

Campello, Mass. 
Portsmouth, N. H. 
Norwood, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 
Windsor, Vt. 
New York, N. Y. 



Concord, N. H. 
Boston, Mass. 

Boston, Mass. 
Marlborough, Mass. 

Sherbrooke, P. Q., Can. 

Lynn, Mass. 



Lamson, John W. J. H. Lamson & Sons Randolph, Vt. 

Lane, Henry Treasurer, Monadnock Shoe Co. Keene, N. H. 

Lawson, John W. J. H. Lawson & Sons Randolph, Vt. 

Leeds, Alfred Assistant General Manager, 

American Writing Paper Co. Holyoke, Mass. 



3§4 



TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



Libby, H. I. Master Mechanic, Saco-Pettee Co. Biddeford, Maine 

Lightbody, James Overseer of Weaving, 

Amoskeag Mfg. Co. 
Lincoln, Carl E. S. D. Warren & Co. 

Lincoln, Jonathan T. General Manager, Kilburn, 

Lincoln & Co. 
Luitwieler, C. S. Treasurer, American Stay Co. 

Lunn, R. M. Treasurer, Lunn & Sweet Shoe Co. 

Lunn, Mrs. R. M. 



Manchester, N. H. 
Cumberland Mills, Me. 

Fall River, Mass. 
East Boston, Mass. 
Auburn, Maine 
Auburn, Maine 



Macomber, R. L. 
Marden, R. C. 

Martin, Ernest C. 
May, J. Walter 
McClure, Alfred J., Jr. 
McCoy, H. A. 

McMurray, H. G. 
McQuarrie, James L. 

Meach, R. M. 
Meach, Mrs. R. M. 
Merrick, F. W. 

Miller, Charles S. 

Miller, Ernest P., Jr. 
Miller, Mrs. Lida 
Miller, Robert L. 

Milliken, John B. 
Mitchell, E. A. 
Mixter, Charles W. 

Moore, Charles E. 

Moore, Hugh Kalsee 

Morrill, H. W. 

Morrison, C. E. 
Morton, H. A. 
Mulliken, Horace 
Muther, L. F. 



Talbot Company 
District Plant Chief, 

New England Tel. & Tel. Co. 
Superintendent, Goodell Co. 
May Cutting-Room Safeguard Co. 
Bond Salesman, Bodell & Co. 
Division Supt. of Plant, 

New England Tel. & Tel. Co. 
H. B. Reed & Co. 
Assistant Chief Engineer, 

Western Electric Co. 
Manager, Cross Abbott Co. 

President, Union Stitch Lock Co.; 

American Stay Co. 
Business Economist, 

Miller, Franklin & Stevenson 
Forbes Litho. Mfg. Co. 

Business Economist, 

Miller, Franklin & Stevenson 
Treasurer, Yale & Towne Mfg. Co. 
Superintendent, Hartford Woolen Co. 
Professor of Political Economy, 

University of Vermont 
General Superintendent, 

G. E. Keith Co. 
Chief Chemist and Chemical Eng'r, 

Burgess Sulphite Fiber Co. 
Superintendent, Ludlow Mfg. 

Associates 
Salesman, Griffith-Stillings Press 
Superintendent, Paris Mfg. Co. 
Mechanical Engineer 
Treasurer, Peerless Machinery Co. 



Boston, Mass. 

Manchester, N. H. 
Antrim, N. H. 
Boston, Mass. 
Concord, N. H. 

Lowell, Mass. 
Manchester, N. H 

New York, N. Y. 
White River June, Vt. 
White River June, Vt. 

Boston, Mass. 

New York, N. Y. 
Fitchburg, Mass. 
Chicago, 111. 

New York, N. Y. 
New York, N. Y. 
Hartford, Vt. 

Burlington, Vt. 

Brockton, Mass. 

Berlin, N. H. 

Ludlow, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 
South Paris, Me. 
Rye, N. Y. 
Boston, Mass. 



Naylor, Emmett 
Nichols, C. H. 



Secretary, Board of Trade 
President, Small Nichols & Co., Inc. 



Springfield, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 



6 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 



385 



Nolan, Thomas F. Cost Clerk, F. M. Hoyt Shoe Co. 
Northrup, William B. Engineer of Methods, 

New England Tel. & Tel. Co. 
Nutter, Oscar E. Assistant Superintendent, 

Saco-Pettee Co. 



Manchester, N. H. 

Boston, Mass. 
Newton Upper Falls, 

Mass. 



Officer, Thomas 



Superintendent, Sullivan 
Machinery Co. 



Claremont, N. H. 



Paige, J. B. 

Paige, Mrs. J. B. 
Parker, Fred F. 
Parks, R. S. 
Patterson, F. G. 
Pearson, Charles L. 

Pearson, Edward N. 
Pearson, J. A. 

Pecker, Charles H. 
Porter, B. W. 
Porter, Mrs. B. W. 
Powers, Charles T. 
Prescott, Edward L. 
Prouty, C. N., Jr. 



Assistant Superintendent, 

E. & T. Fairbanks & Co., Ltd. 

Parker & Young Co. 
Treasurer, The G. M. Parks Co. 
Auditor, Pacific & Atlantic Mills 
Office Manager, German- American 

Button Co. 
Secretary of State 
Factory Manager, Vermont Farm 

Machine Co. 
John H. Cross Co. 
President, New England Box Co. 



Treasurer, W. H. McElwain Co. 
Director, Isaac Prouty & Co., Inc. 



St. Johnsbury, Vt. 
St. Johnsbury, Vt. 
Lisbon, N. H. 
Fitchburg, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 

Rochester, N. Y. 
Concord, N. H. 

Bellows Falls, Vt. 
Boston, Mass. 
Greenfield, Mass. 
Greenfield, Mass. 
Northampton, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 
Spencer, Mass. 



Quinby, Hon. H. B. Ex-Governor of New Hampshire 



Laconia, N. H. 



Rahmanop, Ford W. 

Ramaked, George W. 
Rankeillor, Alexander 
Rankin, Walter P. 
Redfield, William C. 



Redfield, Mrs. Wm. C. 
Reed, Ralph D. 
Regan, Joseph C. 

Requa, Arthur F. 
Rice, C. M. 

Robbie, Kenneth 
Robinson, Edward 



Assistant Superintendent, 

Burgess Sulphite Fiber Co. 
German-American Button Co. 
Superintendent, Saco & Pettee Co. 

Member U.S. House of Representa- 
tives, 5th N. Y. District: Vice- 
President, American Blower Co. 

General Manager, H. B. Reed & Co. 
Assistant to General Manager, 

Yale & Towne Mfg. Co. 
N. Y. Evening Post Co. 
Secretary, Marshall Wells 

Hardware Co. 
General Secretary, Y. M. C. A. 
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, 

University of Vermont 



Berlin, N. H. 
Rochester, N. Y. 
Biddeford, Me. 
Boston, Mass. 



Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Manchester, N. H. 

Stamford, Conn. 
New York, N. Y. 

Duluth, Minn. 
Springfield, Mass. 

Burlington, Vt. 



3«6 

Roper, Charles H. 

Rowe, B. A. 
Russell, Howard I. 

Russell, Lewis H. 
Russell, W. F. 

Russell, W. W. 
Rutzell, F. A. 

Ryan, M. H. 
Ryder, H. D. 



TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



Superintendent Construction Dept., 

Hood Rubber Co. 
Plimpton Press 
Superintendent of Carding, 

Amoskeag Mfg. Co. 
German-American Button Co. 
Treasurer, Harrisburg Foundry & 

Mch. Works 
Cashier, First Nat'l Bank 
Superintendent of Operations, 

New England Box Co. 
W. M. McElwain Co. 
Manager, Derby & Ball 



Boston, Mass. 
Norwood, Mass. 

Manchester, N. H. 
Rochester, N. Y. 

Harrisburg, Perm. 
White River June, Vt. 

Greenfield, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 
Bellows Falls, Vt. 



Scammon, Richard 
Schumaker, John S. 
Shelton, H. W. 
Sibley, A. C. 

Silsby, E. S. 

Simpson, J. R. 

Slayton, H. E. 

Sleeper, Dwight W. 

Small, F. L. 
Smith, E. C. 
Smith, Frederick B. 
Smith, George H. 
Smith, James T. 
Smith, Robert E. 
Smith, Stanton E. 
Smith, Walter C. 

Sprague, H. W. 
Stevens, Albert E. 

Stevens, Roland E. 



Stillman, A. R. 

Sullivan, J. M. 
Sweet, Homer W. 

Szepesi, Eugene 



Bank Commissioner 

Chief Engineer, S. D. Warren & Co. 

Forbes Litho. Mfg. Co. 

Treas. and Superintendent, 

The Quaker Shoe Co. 
General Shipping Clerk, 

E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. 
Merchandise Manager, 

Wm. Filene's Sons Co. 
President and Treasurer, 

F. M. Hoyt Shoe Co. 
Fire Protection Engineer, 

Underwriters' Bureau of N. E. 
Treasurer, Small Nichols & Co., Inc. 
Nashua Gummed & Coated Pa. Co. 
W. H. McElwain Co. 
Berwick & Smith Co. 
Lowell Textile School 
Smith & Son 

General Manager, Tilton Optical Co. 
Sec'y and Ass't Treasurer, Vermont 

Farm Machine Co. 
Nesmith Shoe Co. 
Supervisor of Expenses, 

Wm. Filene's Sons Co. 
Vice-President, L. E. Knott 

Apparatus Co.; 

Attorney at Law at White River 

Junction, Vt. 
Office Manager, 

C. B. Cottrell & Sons Co. 
Weekly Bulletin Publishing Co. 
Public Accountant, 

Harvey S. Chase & Co. 
Textile Engineer, Szepesi & Farr 



Stratham, N. H. 
Cumberland Mills, Me. 
Boston, Mass. 

North Weare, N. H. 

St. Johnsbury, Vt. 

Boston, Mass. 

Manchester, N. H. 

Boston, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 
Nashua, N. H. 
Boston, Mass. 
Norwood, Mass. 
Lowell, Mass. 
White River June, Vt. 
Tilton, N. H. 

Bellows Falls, Vt. 
Brockton, Mass. 

Boston, Mass. 

Boston, Mass. 



Westerly, R. I. 
Boston, Mass. 

Boston, Mass. 
Boston Mass. 



ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 



387 



Taber, C. H. 

Talcott, George S. 

Tarbell, John A. 
Tarr, Forrest E. 

Taylor, Frederick W. 
Temple, Edw. H. ( Jr. 

Thompson, F. W. 
Thompson, Sanford E, 

Thompson, Mrs. S. E. 
Tobin, John F. 

Torrey, Harry K. 
Tuttle, M. C. 
Tuxbury, Charles 
Tyler, Victor 



President, American Pad and 

Paper Co. 
Secretary and Treasurer, 

American Hosiery Co. 
D. Whiting & Sons 
Div. Const. Engineer, 

New England Tel. & Tel. Co. 
Consulting Engineer 
Superintendent, Aberthaw 

Construction Co. 
Accountant, Berlin Mills Co. 
Consulting Engineer 



General President, Boot & Shoe 

Workers' Union 
Secretary to Gov. Bass 
Secretary, Aberthaw Construction Co. 
Dwight Tuxbury & Sons 
President and Treasurer, 

The Acme Wire Co. 



Holyoke, Mass. 

New Britain, Conn. 
Charlestown, Mass. 

Boston, Mass. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 

Boston, Mass. 
Berlin, N. H. 
Newton Highlands, 

Mass. 
Newton Highlands 

Boston, Mass. 
Concord, N. H. 
Boston, Mass. 
Windsor, Vt. 

New Haven, Conn. 



Upham, J. Duncan Treasurer, Sullivan Machinery Co. Claremont, N. H. 



Vaitses, Paul S. 
Vaitses, Mrs. P. S. 
Varney, Manley H. 

Vawter, F. M. 



Factory Accountant, Regal Shoe Co. 

Overseer Finishing Department, 

Amoskeag Mfg. Co. 
Vice-Pres., Baker- Vawter Co. 



Boston, Mass. 
Boston, Mass. 

Manchester, N. H. 
Holyoke, Mass. 



Waite, C. H. 
Wakeman, Samuel W. 
Walker, George 
Warren, Edmund L. 
Warts, Sherman 
Webb, B. S. 

Webner, Frank E. 

Webster, Arthur J. 
Webster, Fred 

Webster, Leon 

Wellman, Harry R. 



Treasurer, Taylor-Burt Co. Holyoke, Mass. 

New York Shipbuilding Co. Camden, N. J. 

Superintendent, The Taylor-Burt Co. Holyoke, Mass. 

W. H. McElwain Co. Boston, Mass. 

Windsor, Vt. 
President, New England Electric 

Works Lisbon, N. H. 
Vice-President, American Cost 

Accounting Co. New York, N. Y. 

Professor of Physics, Clark University Worcester, Mass. 
Advertising Manager, American 

Writing Paper Co. Holyoke, Mass. 
Assistant Superintendent, 

Royal Worcester Corset Co. Worcester, Mass. 
Asst. Sec'y, Boston Chamber of 

Commerce Boston, Mass. 



388 



TUCK SCHOOL CONFERENCE 



Wells, A. E. 

Welton, Benjamin F. 
Wheeler, H. G. 

Wheeler, Leonard D. 
White, L. C, Jr. 
Whitney, W. A. 
Willers, Diedrick K. 
Winestock, O. I. 
Witherell, F. W. 
Wolf, Robert B. 

Worthen, H. W. 

Worthen, James C. 
Worthen, 
Thomas W. D. 



Superintendent of Shops, 

Sibley College, Cornell Univ. 
Sec'y, Budget Exhibit Com., N. Y. City 
Traffic Chief, New England 

Tel. & Tel. Co. 
Treasurer, Ottaquechee Woolen Co. 
Treasurer, Amsden Lime Co. 
President, Emerson Paper Co. 
German-American Button Co. 
President, Winestock Mfg. Co. 
Efficiency Engineer, Suffren & Son 
Superintendent, Burgess Sulphite 

Fiber Co. 
District Commercial Manager, 

New England Tel. & Tel. Co. 
American Glue Co. 



Ithaca, N. Y. 
New York, N. Y. 

Manchester, N. H. 
White River June, Vt. 
Amsden, Vt. 
Wendell, N. H. 
Rochester, N. Y. 
Perkinsville, Vt. 
New York, N. Y. 

Berlin, N. H. 

Manchester, N. H. 
Gloucester, Mass. 



Member Public Service Commission Concord, N. H. 













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A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

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